


Locked

by giwp



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Ouija Board, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:57:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 72,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giwp/pseuds/giwp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game was Jean's to play. </p><p>Trying to live day to day when he wasn't even sure how long those days could last. An eternity? longer? Hopefully less? It was all a shot in the dark and Jean's been tired of running after dead bullets since the end of his third deathiversary. That is until a new piece in the puzzle that is Jean's 'life' appears. Now it's just a race to find a way for Jean to escape his little home-styled hell and to give Marco the peace he's wanted since he was born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shit Outta Luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is constantly being edited to make sure I'm not being stupid and forgetting important details. Sorry if it's disorienting! ╘[◉﹃◉]╕
> 
> -I changed the timeline from 15 years when Jean died to 25 years (Nov 13)

_“Well god fucking damn. How much more fucked can a single loser get?”_

He’s been watching the tall, freckled boy in complete fascination for about an hour. And since the guy stepped foot in the place, he’s managed to trip over the musty hallway rug and knock himself into an old armoire perched on its side in the dining room. What Jean hasn’t found out though, is why this Christian-looking goody-two shoes boy decided to visit the most ‘haunted’ house in town in the middle of the summer. BY. HIMSELF. Like is he actually mentally slow. No that’s horrible of him to say. Everyone gets curious about what the house in the woods has to offer.

Jean’s been here long enough to vouch for it. I mean it has been almost 25 years of absolute hell. Get it? Because he’s stuck in this after-life like state. Oh how he wishes he could have just died that faithful night years ago and hadn’t gotten trapped in the circle of the living dead. Being stuck with his satisfactory face of a 22 year old doesn’t suck per say, but going day to day as a floating soul that ‘shall never reach peace’ is the worst. But the story that tags along to how Jean ended up in this state could rival that in a heartbeat. It was the stupidest thing really. A long and stupid story that can wait but an interesting one depending on who was willing to listen. As since the day it happened 25 years ago, the grand total of interested listeners has rallied up to a whopping zero. Hey. You don’t get many humans walking around here that can hear let alone hear the dead telling them the story of how they died. Or well technically not ‘died’…. Like I mentioned, just a really long story of soul bartering from yours truly.

And now he’s stuck here. With nothing to do except watch this 20-something fellow bumble around his living space trying to set up a… board? Jean sucks his teeth between slightly blue lips.

_“Oh god. Not another Ouija board attempt to contact the dead. Do they always have to be the cliché young adult that spends Hallow-“_

“Hey Eren.” Well that voice wasn’t what Jean expected to hear. He’d only heard a couple whispered curses and murmured prayers that nothing bad would happen from the tall freckled man. But the voice nearing the range of Samuel L. Jackson was pretty... trippy? No. Hot? OH GOD NO. Relax, Jean. I know it’s been a while since you got laid but c’mon. The dude looks like too big an idiot anyway. “How long until you get here? I’ve got the board set up and dude this place is terrifying. I’m kind of tired of staring at the dust bunnies in this room by myself and I’ve already tripped over god knows what like 3 times.”

 _“Actually more like twice and no need to flatter, I’m no god,”_ Jean murmurs. He hears a screechy reply on the other end of those fancy new cell phones followed by a large bang that makes freckled boy cringe and move his phone away from his ear. Jean also notices a slight change in the way he’s facing. His back to the wall, freckles was obviously scoping out the room. _“Looks like someone’s getting jumpy before the board’s even put to use.”_

Actually pacing in the musty living room Jean calls his home, Jean can see the guy’s getting antsy. “Yeah well just hurry it up. Tell Connie we can get McDonald’s after tonight if he wants it that bad. This place just gives me the creeps and I feel like… it feels like someone’s watching my every move. Like they know I’m here and I’m trespassing on their home turf.”

Jean halts at that. Usually when people come down here to make a fool of themselves, they never feel his presence in any way. He’s tried moving small objects and placing old cans of beer he’s found lying around after years of fermentation in odd places but no one ever seems to take notice. Giving someone the heeby jeebies may just mean today’s his lucky day. _“Well this should be fun.”_

 

XXXXX

 

It takes freckles’ friends about another 15 minutes until they find the place. Jean doesn’t understand why it takes that long considering they were apparently on the straight path that leads right up to house when freckles had called the Eren kid. But once the gang gets into the door, Jean can take a guess why.

Five people walk into the house, each either helping carry the large cooler that Jean presumes contains a year’s worth of beer or rolling in loaded with grocery bags full of chips and snacks.

_“How long do these fuckers plan on staying?”_

The short one with the bowling ball for a head answered the question right as the thought flew through Jean’s mind. “Are y’all ready to fucking party?!”

“Connie would you shut the hell up. This place already gives me the creeps and you yelling bloody murder isn’t helping at all.”

“Oh c’mon Eren. Don’t be such a pussy and man up.”

Thankfully that last comment caught the ears of the girl holding around 20 bags of chips as she smacked ‘bowling ball’ Connie upside the head. “I told you to quit using that word.”

 _“Nice hit,”_ Jean whispers. He’s never really been a fan of the word either. He’d heard it enough during his years in grade school back when he was a normal human being with a normal and still couldn’t believe people were still using it at all let alone among ‘friends’. _“God, this modern world is a fucking trip.”_

“Yeah Concon. Listen to Sasha. Can’t use the word if you can’t even get it in real life.”

“Well then looks like someone should quit using the word ‘ass’ since they can’t manage to grab any of that, isn’t that right Armin?”

A short blonde kid that looks way out of place and put out by the entire situation with these idiots turns a brilliant shade of red. Redder than Jean’s seen in years. _“Seems to me there’s a romance brewing between friends,”_ Jean whispers.

As the words leave his mouth, Jean swears he sees a twitch come to freckle-man Marco’s lips. _“Interesting… either you find Tweedledee and Tweedledumb hilarious, or you really can feel my presence.”_ Jean decides to fuck it all and go the traditional route as the two loud ones of the group continue to brawl it out. _“Alright freckles…uh Marco, is it? If you can hear me, blink twice. Or like. Cough into your hand or something.”_ Jean stands there waiting for Marco to give some kind of sign with Eren and Connie still going at it. But he gets nothing. Looks like he actually can’t hear Jean. _“Maybe it’s just my presence is what he can feel.”_

Jean’s just about to start pacing circles around where Marco’s standing in the middle of the room watching Eren and Connie get more and more heated in their arguing, when the next words to be shouted in the usually quiet, small living room catch Jean’s ears.

Looking like he’s over whatever just went down with Blondie, Eren says, “Connie should just shut his mouth and we should get this board thing Marco’s obsessed with over with so we can begin the fun of getting stone cold wasted, yeah?”

A gorgeous woman setting down a bag of what looks like a collection of chip snack packs speaks up, “Eren. Don’t be rude. It’s Marco’s birthday and we agreed to do anything he wanted.”

“Yeah ya dildo. Marco gets what Marco wants.” Baldie pipes up.

“And Marco wants everyone to stop talking about him like he’s not in the room.” Marco responds quickly with a flustered look on his face. Looks like the boy’s a blushed. Witty. But an embarrassment ready to happen.

“I agree with Marco,” Armin mumbles. Everyone turns to the short blond. “I mean we should get this party started. This place really is kinda creepy.”

“Yeah,” Connie says. “I’m ready to get drunk and forget we’re spending the night in a damn haunted house for a friend’s birthday. I mean what kind of fetish do you have to bring all of us into this, dude?”

Jean snorts. _“This kid’s a riot.”_

“Um…well. You know how my parents were always into weird stuff? Well my mom told me that when they were younger, her and my dad came up here to-“

“YOUR PARENTS FUCKED IN THIS PLACE??” Eren shouts across the room from where he’s setting up the cooler near the cracked grandfather clock.

“NO! I was going to say they told me that when they came up here years ago, they saw things. Like, spooky things.”

Sasha who’s been opening and lining up every family size bag of chips she’d brought in looks up with an amused look on her face. “Spooky you say? Don’t you mean… SPOOPY?”

And cue the loud, obnoxious laugh from baldie. It wasn’t even that funny of a joke. Why would ‘spooky’ ever be a funny thing to laugh at? It just sounds like a symptom of a killer flu. But apparently Connie’s getting a kick out of it to last a lifetime. _“I’m guessing someone’s trying their best to get into a new pair of pants.”_

Marco visibly pouts and Jean swears to whatever lies beyond this hell that it’s the most ridiculously, cute thing he’s ever seen from any haunted house guest. Ever. “You guys are horrible.”

Armin being the saint he apparently is speaks up, “Sorry, Marco. Just ignore them. What exactly did your parents see?”

Everyone quiets and stills slightly as they wait for whatever new fear is going to grow in their minds.

“According to my mom the night started out normally. They came up here to scope out whether the rumors of ghosts and apparitions are true and decided to just stay the night since their parents weren’t expecting them. Which I don’t understand since my grandparents are the strictest people you could ever meet.”

As Marco started getting more and more into telling his storytelling, everyone else decided to grab a seat either on the floor or on the springy couch near the always cold fireplace. Jean, with nothing better to do, joined them and found a place on the clock where he could watch the ice in the cooler slowly melt as the cans of cheap beer leached the cold from it.

“But they stayed the night and my mom. She said that during the night she would hear noises. They sounded like voices. It wasn’t clear or loud enough to make out most of it. But she said that all night she heard a voice say the word ‘pretty’ and ‘mine’ in a dark, muted whisper usually followed by thumps coming from the kitchen and bedrooms upstairs. When she brought it up to my dad, they both went out looking for whatever could be making the noises. Apparently, they didn’t find anything except messy rooms and buttload of ripped pieces of paper.”

“Paper?” Armin questions.

“Yeah. I guess some of the rooms were covered in them. But my parents said they were all unreadable and in a language that they couldn’t figure out.”

“And you said they found them upstairs in the bedrooms?”

“Yeah….”

The entire room seems to move in slow motion as everyone turns their heads to the stairs just down the hallway. Jean squints. He doesn’t remember seeing any papers since he got stuck years ago. _“He’s probably lying. Or maybe his parent’s lied just to tell a good scary story at bedtime.”_

“Well you know what this means, guys” Eren says breaking the silence and bringing everyone’s gazes back into the tight knit circle they’ve created. “Adventure time!”

“Eren. I don’t think that’s a good idea. We should just stay down here and not disturb the house,” gorgeous snack pack lady says in her quiet, luscious voice. Seriously, is this chick even real? She sounds like a deadly goddess.

“Disturb the house? Mikasa you’re being ridiculous. You make it sound like it has feelings or some shit. It’s just a house you guys. The most that it could offer is squeaky floorboards and a shit ton of dust.”

“Eren I agree with Mikasa. We should just stay down here” Armin brings up.

“Fine. Whatever you losers decide. I mean it’s not like we would’ve been eaten by a demon for walking up the stairs and walking through shitty décor.

Jean makes a small noise of disgust. Looks like someone’s not very open-minded of the supernatural. Jean decides he’s going to have to fix that. And the fun’s going to start tonight.

 

XXXXX

 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do but it would have to be good. Better than anything those silly movies showed.

During the years of solitude with the occasional guest, Jean’s heard every variation of Ouija movies on the planet. Most included the typical floating table and lights flickering and other what-nots. Jean would have to think outside of the box with this one. I mean, using a couple of those ideas is still in the plan but the grand finale should have a wow factor that creates commotion in town for years to come. It is Marco’s birthday after all. Can’t have anything but the best for the idiot that wants a heart attack-inducing experience on the day they came out of the womb screaming.

So as everyone in the group started setting up the food and drinks and getting situated on the floor and couch, Jean decided to get the party started.

_“What should I do to get the biggest scare? Or rather, who should get the first dealings of Count Jean-cula?? Okay. No. Just…ugh I don’t know.”_

Finding a place to claim that wasn’t covered in drinks and already empty chip packets courtesy of the apparent potato-head of the group, Sasha, Jean scoped out the group to figure out more about them. Trying to find the ticks in the group might help in finding an overall weaknesses.

From loudest to quietest, Eren would have to be the top priority for this to go well. Pull in the one that identifies as alpha and you’ve basically got the whole team wrapped around your finger. God the little shit was so annoying. It wasn’t that he was the king of unnecessary pitches. Eren just had a voice that tended to carry through the room right into that little place in Jean’s head that reminded Jean he technically wasn’t dead enough to not get splitting headaches.

Basically, the boy was obnoxious. Like, very super annoying obnoxious. Jean doesn’t understand how any of the other people in the room could stand to be around him for over an hour let alone be willing to invite him over to an overnight party. Whatever it was, the amount of friends the boy’s collected interested Jean a bit. _“There’s probably the whole cliché, ‘there’s more to him’ vibe that’s going on,”_ Jean decides. Trying to forget the headache forming behind his eyes, Jean notices that Eren’s eyes are green. A green that has the intensity to probably scare away children especially when he furrowed his eyebrows or got into another argument with Connie. They seemed to glow with a passion that Jean remembers seeing somewhere.

Where does he remember those eyes from?

Green eyes the color of grass? No. Of a coat he’s seen somewhere. Maybe a cloak Jean saw in a movie but just a shade or some lighter. Whatever it was Jean decides to let it go. But the feeling is still in the back of his mind as he continues watching Eren interact with everyone.

The only people Jean ever spent a lot of time with while he was alive were his parents and a couple of temporary friends he managed to get in school. And even from that limited group of people he doesn’t remember an intensity from a person’s eyes ever being that deep. He’s never seen as personality as vicious in vigor as this kid’s. “The dude must be a psychopath” Jean concludes.

He doesn’t seem to have any major flaws other than the fact he’s loud as fuck and obnoxious about his opinions on things. And his eyes seem to bother Jean by its sheer intensity. But besides that, Eren seems actually really sincere with his friends. Especially around that kid Armin and who Jean presumes to be a step sister or relative, Mikasa. There’s a connection between the three that makes Jean smile a bit. Mikasa as a motherly affection that Eren seemed to have lacked as a kid and a best friend from the blonde that might be something more with what Jean can make out from the slight touches he sees exchanged between the two.

He misses it.

The sound of people running down the streets, waving down friends. People yelling at the local football games and whispering among friends in the crowd about the cute, senior quarterback with the big hands. The way people interacted. It was all so mundane. It was something Jean hasn’t experienced in a while. In 25 years.

Granted he usually went out alone, Jean missed being able to just people watch. He missed getting to hear the gossip from the cute girls sitting in the booth behind his at the local burger joint in town that had the best shakes. He misses finding out how well the game went that afternoon from the stadium crowd and roughed up players that trickled in after 9pm.

Jean was a nosy person. Sitting here in the corner of a room that’s been his home for years now, listening to these people casually bring up the newest gossip from the local college, proves just that.

The people were the reason why Jean had decided to get a job at that filthy restaurant, he remembers.

The Scouting Legion.

What a horrible name to call a place where families and high schoolers go to get food. It sounded like some branch in the military and not a place for cheap shakes. Jean’s still not sure the history behind the name but the history behind its closing was an easy one to figure out. Even if it happened after Jean had left the real world for limbo land down limbo land lane.

I mean it _was_ the accusation of Jean’s murder on the owner that got it closed after all. Accusation should be underlined since Jean’s not even sure if it was the grumpy old manager anyway that did it. He doesn’t remember much about his death actually. It all happened too fast for anything to make sense.

The news reports and headlines that were mentioned by people passing by the house told Jean that people believed the manager had one day just lost his mind and after his shift ended, had stabbed and left Jean for dead at the haunted house to be found the next day. But the manager was nice. A little abrasive and harsh with his words. But not a person that could kill a man.

Jean knows this. He remembers some parts of that night. Not all. But enough to make Jean lose focus on his task at hand of finding a group weakness as he remembers and tries to piece together why he’s the way he is. Half here in the world of humans, half nowhere discernible.

It was a bribe from one of the football players. They would always say he was too gay to function properly and would probably piss his pants if something bad were to happen. Jean being the stubborn little shit he was decided that was a challenge he couldn’t refuse. So he agreed. He agreed to a night at casa a la haunted up in the woods.

And he did do it. He told his parents that a friend had invited him over to spend the night while they worked on a project for school. And it wasn’t a total lie Jean still reassures his conscious. _“I didn’t lie to my parents and get myself killed”_ Jean would whisper to himself for the first few months living as the dead. Jean was spending the night with a friend. A ‘friend’ accompanied by two of their friends that would leave him once the sun went down and the shadows came out. A friend and company he could never find a face too once after everything went dark. And he did work on a project for school. I mean being socially accepted is a part of high school, isn’t it? And Jean was trying to get the highest marks whether it killed him or not.

_“Looks like I failed that test.”_

How he failed it, Jean can’t remember. He’s positive the manager never made an appearance after clocking out for the night. He can be sure of that. The face of Mr. Levi wasn’t one to be forgotten as the lines of death are being drawn. All he remembers is sitting in the living room and hearing noises coming from the stairs. He was too afraid to check it out so he figures he stayed rooted to the spot. How long he stayed there can be thrown to the wolves that sometimes roam behind the house. But it was quiet. He could hear the faint scratching of mice in the walls. The wind that had been showing signs of a coming rainstorm had stilled. Something was wrong but he couldn’t move. Nothing in his body would listen to his insistence on getting the tuck out of there.

Then everything went black.

He’d woken up to the sound of people yelling and… was someone crying? It was probably just his imagination. When he’d opened his eyes, Jean felt temporarily blinded by a light. Vision red, he had tried to sit up and call for the voices. Trying to tell them that has was here. And that he was fine.

He doesn’t remember too well how or when he fell asleep. Jean figures he must’ve been more tired than he thought he was at first. _“All that silence can knock a person out,”_ he thought.

He looked towards the window. It was a beautiful day from what he could see through the grime and the sun was up and shining through the partially-opened, dust covered curtains. In the light, Jean could make out all of the scratch marks in the walls and floors probably made my various animals and scraping furniture across the room. During the day the place didn’t seem all too bad actually and he was glad that he made it through the night without any major hiccups in the plan.

As the front door opened and light poured into the room, Jean attempted to lift his arm to give a wave. But it wouldn’t go up. He felt like his arms were full of lead and melted into a jelly that wouldn’t do anything right. He felt a sense of panic as he remembered the feeling of not being in control of his body the night before. _“What the hell is going on?”_ He tried calling out to the voices coming from the lighted hallway that was turning to a more normal shade of color from the harsh red tint occupied before.

But as a large group of people walked into the door, everything stopped when he saw his mother staring down the hallway, tears streaming down her face. Clutching her mouth with both hands wrapped in her favorite pair of blue mittens, Jean watches his mother’s knees buckle from under her making her fall to the ground. The sound she was making. Jean still remembers how hard it was to hear a noise come from a woman who barely reached above five feet in height that leveled out as the most ear piercing scream he’s heard since scream music became a thing.

Jean now most definitely knew that something wasn’t right.

Gaining some movement in his arms and legs, Jean tried to get into a standing position. Up and wobbly knees to rival his mother’s , he hobbled over to the archway that led to the stairs and open front door and found why everyone in the neighborhood came to the house in the woods on a beautiful Saturday morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo. So I have piece laid out for NaNoWriMo and I didn't have any direction or motivation until I saw Hdotk's AU. Obviously, I'm not going to take her direction with the story line and will be different then theirs. I know this won't be done by the end of November so I'm extending my own writing to at least by Christmas. At most, like, summer. Hold me to it, please. AKA yell at me mid December if it looks like I'm getting no where with the plot. I'm going to try to update every 2 weeks or so with as much as I've written but shit happens and I have school. Anyway, I hope you like it. Please comment and tell me your ideas or predictions for the story. I love new ideas! 
> 
> tracking the tag [fic: locked](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-locked/)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	2. Fazed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories. Red beanies. Blackouts. And snacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic got more hits than I ever expected so I posted sooner than I'd said before because this is exciting. I hope you like the chapter. Tell me what you think. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> Changes since last chapter: the timeline is now Jean died 25 years ago because I was a butt and forgot to change the original doc weeks ago whoops

“I’m so bored!”

Jean flinches at the loud yelling as he comes back to reality. The crazy trips back to the past would just have to wait for tonight. Jean hasn’t thought about that day in probably months. When Jean first left the world of the living, he’d spent most of his days trying to remember what happened after he blacked out. Nothing came back to memory. And it irritated Jean to no degree less than violent.

But that won’t happen today. _“Not today Satan!”_ Jean yells with a loud sigh at absolutely nothing against the far wall. He’s losing it. But he has a mission to complete. Scare the little babies that want to have a party with demons.

Watching the group, Jean continues assessing any weaknesses.

Eren’s bromance with the Armin kid seems to be something in the wraps. Jean knows the feeling. Unrequited love because it’s way too gay to ask a boy to coffee let alone for a handy in the closet across the hallway. And Armin seems like one of those guys that could formulate equations around you while you tried to remember the Pythagorean Theorem from freshman year. Like the dude just had that air about him that screamed ‘total nerd but still better than you’ and Jean had no doubt that it was all true.

 _“Other than loud mouth Eren, the smallest of jump scares might be what gets him,”_ Jean figures.

Eren, with the perfectly ill-timed manner he possesses pipes up, “can we at least play some music to get in the party throwing mood?”

“Eren,” Connie says. “I gotcha bruh.”

 _“Bruh?”_ Jean whispers to himself. California lingo is a real treat to hear nowadays. And if the dialect wasn’t bad enough, cue the obnoxious music that Jean could only think of to describe as ‘shitty cotton-candy fluff’. _“Seriously, baldie? This is what you listen to?”_

A loud cackling, noise comes from the vicinity of dozens of empty potato chip snack packs as some clearly manipulated starts screeching about lipgloss.

“SASHA! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MUSIC?”

Sasha still trying to not dribble potato chip spit down onto her shirt tries to respond. “I-I was bored. And-and your phone was th-there so I figured. Might as well!”

Mikasa speaks up as Connie makes to move toward Sasha who’s turned to rolling on the floor trying to calm herself. “I have music Connie. Don’t worry about it.”

At that Jean sees Eren snicker at a flushed Connie who’s glaring darts into the back of Sasha’s head on the floor. Armin just gives a sympathetic look that makes Jean smile a bit.

_“He reminds me of someone.”_

The feeling of emptiness rolls through Jean like a red wheelbarrow in a field of damned poppies. It’s faint but still there. Jean can’t place where it is or whether it’s a nice, peaceful feeling or something that could possibly destroy him. So he decides to just ignore it altogether. Like with everything in limbo, deal with it later.

Nothing ever gets done but there’s never a need for things to be done when you’re stuck for all of eternity. At least that’s what Jean assumes is going to happen. Take a soul; let it sit and rot for centuries; rinse and repeat.

The light at the end of the tunnel is dim and actually a fluorescent light bulb too out of date for modern electrical grids. Shit’s going to explode whether it happens with the appearance of Satan or some supernatural mist-away trick Jean’s seen done in Hollywood movies is really up for debate.

A debate for one.

A long, drawn out debate for one.

Mikasa. Mikasa was a treat. She was stunning with her looks and the Asian features that shown through was enticing but also made her seem like she could probably chop off your arm if you even thought to touch her without her consent. Which Jean doesn’t doubt she could and would do if provoked. She also had an affinity to be near Armin and Eren and intervened with arguments that would pop up between the latter and Connie. She was a mother bear. The vicious mother bear with claws of ribbed steel. And in correlation that would make Eren Baby Bear and that was a thought that got a laugh out of Jean.

Mikasa’s weakness: Baby Bear Eren

Eyes of steel Eren with noticeable German features.

Jean notices that most of the people in the room were of different race. “That’s a nice change from cracker-central we used to be.” Connie and Armin seemed like the typical white boys type with Connie’s weird surfer vibes showing his full Californian style and Armin’s subtle English accent giving away his roots. Eren looked like he probably had a bit of German in him. Mikasa was most definitely some kind of Asian. Maybe part Japanese. Sasha was who knows what, but most definitely had a bit of Scottish in her as you could hear an accent when she got to excited while talking to Connie. Marco is a darker European white. Most likely from a line of Belgians. Or whatever other Europeans live in… Europe.

With that combination and Jean’s French roots, the room was definitely the most ethnically diverse Jean’s ever seen in 25 years.

Letting his eyes travel across the room, Jean finds the mess of wrappers and crumbs. Sasha and Connie have been discussing Connie’s newfound weakness for shitty pop music while everyone else had lost interest and were talking about school and whatnot. Did someone just mention Cher? _“She’s still relevant? Jesus. Is she still alive?”_ Jean wonders.

At the corner of his eyes, Jean sees Marco shift. It looked like he had glanced in Jean’s direction but it was probably at the massive spider web in the corner where Jean was leaning back against the wall.

Deciding in the back of his mind that Connie and Sasha’s weakness would only be a lack of food and a good time, Jean turns his attention to birthday boy Marco.

When he’d first walked into the house, Jean had noticed Marco was only a shy bit taller than him. It always infuriated him that there were people out there that rivaled his almost 5 foot 8 stature even though there were women in his school taller than him. But with Marco, it suited him. It was fine. Just. Fine.

Jean had never been the most bulky of guys. When he was younger, the pictures his mother had posted all throughout the house told the world that he a chubby kid who loved his omelets in the morning. When he started junior high, Jean decided he needed to fix the weight issue. Now all that was left was a skinny beanpole. People at school would call him ‘gangly’ but beanpole was a definite better choice of insult for Jean.

The ‘gangly gay boy’ was a horrible soundtrack to walk down the hall to.

Marco, on the other hand, had a more built-to-snuggle-with look about him. And the freckles. Jesus Christ did that boy have freckles. Jean snickered as the thought that those freckles probably ran down to his ass came to mind but then immediately cut the thought as he felt blood rushing in opposite directions. _“What the fuck? That’s never happened before…. I mean-the feeling of blood rushing. Not of-oh never mind. No one can even hear me.”_

Letting out another loud sigh and going back to his inspection, Jean doesn’t find many note-worthy discoveries. It seems Marco’s the only one in the group without a soul mate connected at their hips. Jean figures his girlfriend might’ve just been too scared to show up at a haunted house to spend the night. Or whatever. He might be gay. I mean the eau de gay is kind of there and Jean thinks he sees a couple of stolen glances towards Eren who’s being stupid and can’t see through his squinting as he laughing like a homeless man on crack.

 _“Don’t tell me Eren is the actual stud of the group. God you guys have low standards.”_ Jean mutters as he slides down the dusty wall to his butt. The floor makes a slight creaking sound.

The joys of being on the other side is Jean gets to know what it really means when humans say ‘the house is just settling’.

 _“Yeah. Settling under my fat ass because sometimes floating around is boring,”_ Jean had said the first night someone had decided to pay the place a visit 20 something years ago.

“Um. What the heck was that?”

Jean looks up from between his knees where he was mentally zoning out.

Marco’s staring up in his direction. His face says he’s just seen a ghost. But Jean knows if he did see something, it would be his face and that reaction would not be very nice for the house guest to give to the current tenant.

“Did you guys here that?” Marco asks around the small room.

Everyone shakes their head and switches their eyes from where Jean is sitting to every square inch around him. They all look confused as they tell Marco it was probably the house settling since it is so old. _“Hah!”_

Marco takes this as slight reassurance and suggests a change of pace. “Do you guys want to do the thing now, or….” He trails off as what looks like nervousness settles over him.

_“Story time boy is actually afraid of those stories his mom told. At least someone’s keeping an open mind about this.”_

Sasha replies, mouth full of what looks like smashed Twizzlers. “Yeah. But first Connie needs to run to the car and grab the rest of the snacks.”

_“The rest?”_

Connie furrows his eyebrows, “Why do I have to go?”

“Why do we have more snacks in the car?” Eren asks.

“Is someone going to go or not?” Sasha resorts on yelling into the room.

The fight on who should go out to the car continues until finally Connie caves into Sasha’s pleas. Eren makes a whipping noise as Connie steps over the threshold.

Jean watches the group fuzz out and continue their conversations on whatever could be more interesting than talking to the dead. And then all there is, is static.

 

XXXXX

 

He’s back to that morning.

 _“What the fuck is this?”_ Jean can hear himself ask to a vacant audience. No one can hear him. Not even in his memories.

Why does it have to be this memory? Why does he need to revisit this?

Jean hasn’t thought about this day in months and here he is again. Twice in the same day. Revisiting a New Year’s shitstorm.

Wait. New Year’s?

That’s right! It had been New Year’s Eve the night before. It was why he’d gotten off work earlier than usual. It was why those ‘friends’ of his had said tonight would be the perfect night to show them he wasn’t a crybaby. Those damn ‘friends’ he still couldn’t remember the faces of let alone names.

Laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, Jean sees images floating over his eyes. His mind must be playing a trick because he’s able to make out three distinct shapes.

They look human. Two of which have a large build while the other seems extremely short in comparison.

 _“Who are you?”_ Jean whispers in a scratchy voice. He’s so thirsty.

Why is he so thirsty?

Turning away from the figures, he sees the sun shining. Jean turns his head back towards the shadowy figures but they’ve disappeared. Calling it a lost cause, he immediately makes to get as close to the group of people he knows has congregated at the door.

He remembers he hadn’t cried. Not even as he woke up the next day to see his mother crying on the threshold of a foreign house.

It was shock. Why would his mother be here? Why was she crying?

Jean needed to know.

Jean felt the emotions of that moment flood his entire body. He felt his mind clamp down and stop functioning as the memory continued.

He’d gotten up off the floor with much difficulty as his legs didn’t seem to have woken up yet. There wasn’t any circulation to begin with, Jean remembers as he looks backs on it.

As he stepped closer to the sunlit hallway, Jean realized no one had reacted to his actions or noisy shuffling yet. He’d stepped forward over the doorway into the hallway and tripped over the corner of an oriental rug. Falling forward onto his knees, he figured someone would come up to rescue him but what he heard wasn’t what he expected.

“The souls in this house are angry at what’s been done here. Mrs. Kirschstein, I think it’s time we let the police take care of… the situation.”

Jean was confused. He watched his mother shake her head, never moving her eyes from the direction of the stairs.

Slowly, Jean turned his head to see what was upsetting his mother so much.

Having still been on his knees, the only place to go was back and he felt his back slam into the carved wood of the doorway as tunnel vision kept his eyes on the steps going up to a small landing that once only held a coat rack and long end table.

Jean remembers walking in the night before and calling it a dull choice of color and taste. It had only held an empty grey vase and a buttload of dust at the time. “Something an old couple would put in their house,” Jean had said.

Now, there was definitely color. And lots of it.

The scene itself was… odd. There was blood and-and a body but why there was blood and how the body just seemed to sit there, looking at nothing but the front door, was eerie and seemed so out of place and staged; chills ran down Jean’s spine.

Jean’s human body that actually has a real spine is leaned up against the dark-polished end table facing the front entrance where the group of people had dispersed a bit leaving his mother, the police and a couple random folk to figure out things.

They all seem entranced by the scene. His mother continues to run tears down her face while the other people left just stare. Staring like it’s a damn art exhibit and Jean is the new million dollar piece that got flown in overnight while everyone slept.

_“Why aren’t they doing anything?!”_

Turning back to the body, Jean tries to scramble up the stairs.

The trek up the seven steps to the small landing feels like a mile’s journey. Jean wants to know what happened. A cause for why he can see his body bleeding out from wounds he can’t find.

Why was any of this happening?!

As he gets closer to the body- to his body- Jean reaches his hands out towards his face. His red beanie, which he’s never dead without, seems to have gone missing. He doesn’t know what he expects. But what he gets in return as he nears his face is neither a cold body nor a handful of sticky blood.

His hand simply slips right between his cheekbones. He feels a rush flow through his body and his spine gives another brief shiver as his hand begins to tingle. Removing his hand from his own face, Jean turns to his mother trying to find someone to answer his questions.

Why was this happening?!

Why weren’t they doing anything?

_“What-what happened last night?”_

He didn’t get an answer in return. Their eyes stayed on the landing floor where blood slowly dripped from Jean’s ears, staining the old carpeting. Jean watches more blood drip from where his eyes should be clear and white but are kept wide open. Wide as if he’s seen horrible things happen in that stairway. The blood dripping from his slackened mouth leaves a bitter aftertaste that tastes like the pennies Jean would suck on from his mother’s purse when he was young.

He can taste it. The blood in his mouth. Another shiver runs through his body. He can feel the cold. The cold of a dead body.

How could this be real?

Who would do such a thing?

Jean watches his vision stutter again.

_“No! I need to find out what happened! I can’t leave yet. MOM!”_

She hasn’t moved at all. They seemed frozen in time. The look in their eyes too painful to see as he felt a sense of loneliness overwhelm him.

He was alone. No one could hear him and no one can help. He’ll never find out what happened.

Jean takes a seat across the hallway from his body still leaning against wall, slowly losing body heat.

The answer is somewhere. He’d spent years trying to find it until he finally gave up 13 years ago. The problem wasn’t a lack of motivation. Jean seriously still wants to know why he’s stuck. It’s just. Lack of evidence and the fear of resurfacing memories had stopped him. Some memories after his death were meant to be forgotten and thinking about the events of his death was sure to cause a rise of them.

He didn’t want that pain.

All he wanted was an answer.

So, Jean sat there, letting his vision falter. Letting what was going to come to him, come.

It’s dark again.

 

XXXXX

 

Lots of screaming.

He’d been alone that night. No one had decided to pay the ol’ haunted house a visit.

It was probably because of his screaming. And the fact that a young college kid had recently died on the premises from still unknown cause.

They’d said it was a seizure. The internal bleeding caused by a ruptured blood vessel in his brain that caused a malfunction.

 _“Making me sound like a broken robot,”_ Jean had said the day he heard from the investigators that had come to finally clean up the scene left on end table haven.

But that was all great and dandy. A seizure would keep his mother’s mind at peace. She wouldn’t see something like that as her fault. She’s going to be fine.

Jean on the other hand, learned just how far being in limbo could go.

That first night, he had felt the chill and tasted the blood his dead body had felt. Now Jean can feel this odd, hot tingle coming from his toes.

The feeling turns to a burning sensation and within a minute Jean experiences the pain that could only be described as being thrown into a pit and lit on fire.

This was it he was dying. But he was already dead? What the fuck was this?

Jean falls to his knees still screaming bloody murder. It feels like his skin is being ripped right off his body. Like every inch of his body was being slowly burned by a thousand blowtorch at once.

 _“WHY AM I BURNING”_ Jean yells at the floor that’s shifting in color to a red tint. It reminds him of that first day, after waking up and waiting for his eyes to adjust.

His body. The taste of the blood and the cold shivers. He’d felt all of it before this horrible burning sensation took over.

His body was burning. Literally.

He couldn’t remember at the moment what his parents believed in. They’d been a Christian family even with a punk-ass gay boy for a son. Did Christians deal with the dead this way?

With cremation?

_“Oh god.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hopes I got the wording right and the chapter didn't sound like a 12 year old wrote it bc I edit in the middle of the night*
> 
> I'll update as soon as I can. Finals are in a month so I should be good for another few a weeks of minor anxiety. 
> 
> Leave critiques and comments because they help so much as motivation. And they help a lot when errors exist. It's much appreciated!
> 
> Please leave kudos and I don't know-share the fic maybe. That'd be cool of you. I've never posted a fic before and I don't know what came over me to post this one but it's been fun and I hope you guys think it's nice.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Reminder that editing of older chapters could happen and I will tell you before diving into new chapters if it does happen. But I mostly have it all laid out and this could be a long fic. So stay tuned, bruh!!


	3. S-T-U-C-K

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ARE YOU READY TO OUIJA?? Because Jean's not so sure about talking to anyone right now. But I guess he doesn't have much of a choice...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi.

He’d woken up feeling empty. No. Not absolutely empty.

It was over.

His body was long gone. That connection he had to still being alive, still _feeling_ alive, gone.

But that sensation of something in him trying to flutter away was there. Restlessness stayed with him for months after that night; until, finally, he’d forgotten it was there.

Now as he sits in a room full of conversing people, Jean can’t get himself to focus.

He doesn’t hear the joke that gets Sasha laying over Connie’s legs in laughter.

He doesn’t hear or remember why Marco would ever touch Eren’s shoulder and whisper something that would make him chuckle like that into his ear. Why was he even getting so close to anger-management boy?

The thrill of trying to scare these kids is long gone and he doubts he’s ever going to be in the mood to do anything for a while.

It all seemed for nothing. Remembering and feeling old details is useless and unnecessary.

 _“What the heck stupid reason did that happen for?”_ Jean asks.

He tries to reign in everything he just went through and decides to distract himself and watch the group still making residence at the house for the night talk and set up their things.

They’d put out their sleeping bags already and Jean wonders just how much he’d missed because of the ill-timed flashback.

He’d gone back and seen so much it’s all jumbling in Jean’s mind at this point.

What he does remember that sticks out would have to be the new memory of how tall those ‘friends’ that took him to the house were. They seemed so far away at the time; yet, so close. But not close enough to make out faces to the shadows apparently.

There’s a strange feeling in the back of Jean’s mind though that those people from the night Jean was left to die were strangers. They didn’t belong in that house when Jean woke up to pounding on the door. They didn’t belong in the back of Scouting Legion where Jean had gone to take out the trash before making the walk home after work. What were they doing back there?

Were they waiting for Jean?

Did Jean really even know them enough to agree to a challenge as stupid as sleeping in a haunted house on New Year’s Eve?

Okay, now he was just frustrating himself for no reason. What’s done is done. Those guys are probably old with grandchildren by now. Whoever they were, they’d been an accomplice to the end of Jean’s life and start of limbo hell and Jean would hate them for it but whatever. Just. Whatever. Hopefully they lived the rest of their lives guilty for what happened.

Yes. Jean holds a grudge even in the after-life.

 

XXXXX

 

It was getting late into the night when the fun began.

Connie and Armin had ended up alternating on story telling time. Armin mostly told embarrassing jokes that got the loudest chuckles out of Eren and quiet smiles from Mikasa. Most of Connie’s stories were about the jump scares Jean remembers from Boy Scouts camping trips. He remembers the times when they’d spend weekends up in these very woods, sitting around campfires trying to scare our friends and then going out swimming the next day. Jean also remembers it as the moment he realized there might be more to his persona than he realized.

Boys were curious. What boy doesn’t want to know if they’re friends look like them down- uh there. It’s a validation method. The whole idea that if you check then you must be okay if everyone else looks the same. Totally natural. Except for the fact that the day after and for the next 12 years, Jean spent mental time suppressing the urge to take a peek again. And trying to stop himself from face planting into the face of one of his classmates. Was it Thomas? It was probably Nac. He had that dark hair that stuck to his face when he got out of the lake during trips that made Jean want to run his fingers through to fix.

God, he was a pathetic idiot back then.

So many locker room moments he’ll take to the grave. I mean, well- whatever.

When he was younger, Jean had heard about gay people. He lived in California after all. But he didn’t know how the people he saw everyday would react if he voiced his opinion on how the boy in the class above him had really pretty eyes.

His parents had never talked about the topic or the chances their precious Jean-bo might not grow to want a wife or traditional domesticity. So he stayed quiet.

People in town, Jean remembers, were prone to saying mean things or offensive slurs that made Jean uncomfortable when he was out with his parents or just walking around. So he stayed quiet.

His friends. Jean assumed they would leave if they found out he liked boys. They’d feel uncomfortable and Jean didn’t want that to happen. So he stayed quiet.

He stayed quiet until that day in high school his freshmen year when he got tired of the assuming insults. He’d wanted to set the bullies straight. So he told them he wasn’t straight. He told them that he was like everybody else no matter what. Hah!

Kids in the 1980s were brutal back then. Especially in such a small town that breathed tradition and shot streams of homophobic culture through their veins without even realizing it or denying it.

But Jean had felt better knowing people knew. He didn’t have to hide it anymore. His parents would find out by word of mouth by Friday because, hey, small town gossip travels. That talk had gone better than Jean had ever expected and they took it with more stride than Jean thinks his friends’ parents would have.

Aside from those stupid bullies that mostly consisted of the football team, Jean’s life had been pretty good.

He’d been in his senior year of college studying business when it ended. But Jean wasn’t one to complain. He never really felt like business was the right path for him. It was a generic path. And Jean hated hiding behind generic. He was sometimes as asshole about it, but Jean wanted what he wanted and the only person that could stupor influence him was his mom. Jean hasn’t heard that voice in a while, though.

He’s lost his direction and no mommy was going to come and hold his hands through this.

He was alone again.

Alone on the floor of the locker room trying to wipe away the spit and pull on dusty clothes from the top of the lockers.

Alone during the summer after getting kicked out of boy scouts for rough handling a boy that called him a girl for grabbing his bus partner’s hand too quickly.

Alone in a creaky house with freaky window treatments and no one to talk to.

Hearing Connie tell these old stories was refreshing compared to the silence he’d been accustomed to for years. And even though the stories brought out old memories, it was more distraction to his busy after-life of doing nothing.

As the stories progressed and the night sky turned darker, Jean could see from across the room out the window that the stars were coming out. It also brought out the cool summer air that accompanied weather in- shoot what month was it?

Being dead and in la la limbo meant the perks off that free feeling of not having to know what time or day it was. It also came with that dread of not knowing how long it’s been and how the months seem to crawl up on the others faster and faster.

Since death, Jean had resorted to counting the days of the winter firework shows to acknowledge another year. It was automatic. Fireworks would light the cold, night sky. Jean would add another tally to his mental chart.

Realizing something, Jean speaks up into an already chatting crowd. _“That’s why I counted New Year’s fireworks. I’d freaking died on the damn day.”_

Looking around at the modern breed of college kids circled around various electronic devices that look like modern cellular phones, Jean feels way out of place. They all seemed to be around the age of 21 or at least Jean hopes so considering the alcohol. He’d never been one for underage drinking.

“Marco are you even going to take a sip of the beer?” Jean hears Eren complaining.

“I will,” Marco replies. “I just figured pacing myself for the night would be best and I shouldn’t jump right-“

“Pfft. Oh c’mon,” Connie pipes up from where he was leaning back on his elbows with Sasha’s head in his lap. “You’re finally 21 and you’ve waited until your birthday for so long. Just grab one and chug and we can bring the board out.”

“Fine. Okay, yeah.”

 _“Way to avoid the peer pressure, oh biddable birthday bear,”_ Jean snickers.

Grabbing a glass bottle of beer, Marco reaches across Eren to grab the set of antique bottle openers Jean knows was most definitely stolen from someone’s dad’s junk drawer. On the way back to sitting up straight, Jean watches in painful slow motion as Marco’s hand seems to graze the front of Eren’s thighs.

Eren thinks nothing of it and doesn’t even break conversation with Armin who’s telling some wild tale from AP Chemistry. The disappointment on Marco’s face could probably be recognized from a mile away but a second later, he’s popped the top off his bottle and is chugging the bitter drink down.

His friends turn to him at the sound of the cap hitting the floor and cheer Marco on in his fit to get wasted and probably forget what he’d tried to just do.

_“Oh god, Marco. Really?”_

He hadn’t elicited a response from Eren so drinking it awake was so help?

According to Connie’s yelling, Marco had never drank before now. The poor kid probably doesn’t even know his limits. Tonight is just going to get more and more interesting.

 

XXXXX

 

After a moment where Marco slows down on the alcohol abuse and everyone resumes their incoherent talking followed by varying degrees of laughing, the board makes an entrance.

It was Eren who had suggested bringing the thing out after saying he’s “too tired of hearing Connie’s stories” and wants to get on with the real spooky stuff. Marco seems a bit tipsy but all is well in the group so everyone agrees.

Grabbing the small coffee table that’s been laying on its side in the corner for who knows how many years, Mikasa tests it’s integrity and places it to the side of the room near the fireplace where everyone has congregated to. They’d decided it was probably best not to make demon calls where they were going to sleep.

Jean, deciding it best to look from afar for now is standing against the fireplace, right behind Marco’s seat, watching them as Sasha pulls out a white and red plastic bag with what looks like a dartboard on it. She pulls out a black box that looks like it’s a board game. It also looks new as hell. _“Store bought Ouija board? Really?”_

Being behind Marco, Jean can see the muscles in his neck tense up at the sight of the game. To the left of Marco, Eren and Armin seem on opposite ends of the spectrum of ecstasy to pure, unadulterated apprehension. Mikasa, seated across from Marco, is faced directly towards where Jean is and if intimidation could count for anything, she had it in the bag. She seemed unmoved by the box. Connie and Sasha on the other side of Marco were talking a mile a minute about how there’d been a sale for the boards when they’d gone and that they’d scored free cookie dough with the game. The location of said cookie dough is in the vicinity of disgusting fart noises and Jean wishes he didn’t know why they’d smelled like Christmas in the middle of summer for so long.

After a bit of coaxing the box out of the idiots’ hands, Mikasa gets to opening it and reading the instructions. _“They can fit centuries worth of rules and guidelines as well as a users’ manual into 3 pages of folded paper? That’s technically only 1 page.”_

“Are you really wasting precious talky time reading the instructions?” Eren whines in that grating voice of his.

Armin, the last Jean expected to speak up against Eren says, “well we should probably know how to make the connection if we want this to actually work, don’t you think so, Marco?”

Marco, who’s clenched his hands in nerves, relaxes a bit and nods. “Yeah. I mean we don’t want to, like, call some evil demon by accident during its feeding time or something.”

Sasha and Connie nod at that. Eyes fixed on the instructions Mikasa is still going through with ease. That’s the joy of games around children- the distraction. Promise of a good time will shut up any person with the attention span of a three year old.

Marco was still a twitchy mess, though. Jean could see the hairs in the back of his freckly neck standing up and Jean wondered if Marco could feel him standing so close behind him. Armin was sitting rather close to Eren waiting patiently for Mikasa to finish like a damn puppy warming up to someone. He seemed comfortable where he was but the situation was what was throwing him for a loop. Being right up against the couch, Eren had chosen to throw an up onto the seat behind him- behind Armin’s shoulders that seemed to the right closer to Eren on instinct. Cue the fists of repressed fury from Marco.

_“Okay I kind of agree those two make a good yin and yang aesthetic. Marco, you freckled fuck, you need to stop trying to get with this idiot. Conflict is not what you need at a time like this.”_

The sound of paper rustling tells the group Mikasa is probably done reading but as she’s about to say something, Connie buzzes in “it says right here ‘His pointer finger circled my puckered love cave. ‘Are you ready for this?’ he mewled, smirking at me like a mother hamster about to eat her-‘“

“CONNIE WHAT THE FUCK!” Eren yells.

Jean’s in way too much shock too even comprehend what’s just happened let alone give any sort of physical response. Eren though is able to and grabs the box’s lid and lobs it at Connie. Sasha’s been laughing uncontrollably for what has to be the 7th time tonight at the reading and then the loud thud of the lid making contact with bald head.

Connie drops his phone and feigns injury until he starts getting the giggles and joins Sasha on the floor. Marco let’s out the slightest giggle and Mikasa smiles while Armin’s turned a deep shade of red from embarrassment and Eren, from Jean figures the same and anger at what’s probably a tired joke.

“Why the fuck do you keep quotes from Fifth Shades of Grey on your phone?”

_“Fifty Shades of Grey?”_

“Because it’s funny and you react like that and make this stupid face that could make Roz from Monsters Inc. laugh, duh.”

 _“Wait. What?”_ Jean was definitely confused now. _“What the heck is Fifth Shades of Grey and who’s Roz?”_

“Shut up, Springer. Now can we get going on this game already?”

Armin comes to the rescue. “I agree. Mikasa. What’s the instructions say to do first?”

“Well basically it says,” Mikasa says, snatching the rule pamphlet from Connie, “there are 3 big rules to use the board. One, don’t use of a home. Two, never treat it like a game because it is real. And three, always say goodbye. Also we have designate the Ouija team roles so nothing goes wrong. So we need a leader, documenter, the participants holding the board and a-a screamer.”

“What the heck is a screamer,” Sasha says, after sobering up a bit.

“It’s someone who screams when they hear something outside according to the paper. Also, Armin you brought the candles right? We need those.”

“Yeah, I have them. I’ll go get them from my bag.”

“Good,” Mikasa says. “So once we get everything set, we can start the rest of the process. So who wants to be what?”

Armin sits back down with those big, white pillar candles you see on the altars of Catholic churches and says, “I think Marco should be the leader. If they’re the one who asks the questions, then it’d be cool to have the birthday boy do it.”

“Yeah. What say it Marco? You wanna do the talky talky?” Connie asks.

“Uh… yeah sure I guess,” Marco replies sounding apprehensive about it.

“Great! So me and Sasha already volunteered as participants on the way here. And so did Eren,” Connie replies.

Sasha slaps her hand across Connie’s upper arm. “Nooo. I want to be the screamer. I can do that!”

“Fine, whatever Sash,” Eren says, surprisingly quiet during this whole charade.

Mikasa looks across the table and gives Marco a smile. “Then that leaves me and Armin.”

“I can be the documenter since writing is my thing anyway. And the board kind of scares me so....”

“That’s fine. I can be a participant. So it’s decided then. You guys ready to start?

A solemn nod is given from everyone around the table.

 _“The excitement is real with you guys,”_ Jean mutters.

“Great so let’s this going already,” Eren mutters. It seems like he’s starting to lose interest.

“Okay. Everyone who’s participator needs to put their hands on the dial. Um…let’s see,” Mikasa pauses removing the board from the box and placing it in the middle of the coffee table. The board looks so clean and new it’s kind of annoying.

_“They couldn’t even search for an authentically used board for such a momentous occasion as this? Jeez.”_

Placing the board piece on the board, Mikasa continues. “Okay so us participators need to all be touching the piece called the planchette (?) and then we can call in any spirits.”

Eren, Mikasa, Connie, Sasha and Marco all put their hands on the piece making sure they all have a handle on it.

That’s when Jean feels it. It’s like a disturbance in the air. Like someone’s watching but not entirely. The energy in the room has shifted.

Turning through the room, Jean doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary. No one else is in the house so he figures maybe the board isn’t all for shits after all.

“Great so now Marco, you should say this part since you’re the leader and voice for this,” Mikasa says handing over the papers.

Marco looks through all of the instructions and straightens his back when he finds what he needs to say. Jean goes back to standing behind him and watches him take a deep breathe that could fill a small balloon and begin the incantation.

“Okay so first we have to open the gate. Um. Right here we go.” Taking another deep breathe, Marco seems to just dive right into it.

“Hermanunis, keeper of The Gate, Lord of Hidden Road Between Life and Death, I call on you. Hermanubis, I summon you. A follower of the Old Ways calls out to you. Open the gate between the Realm of the Living and the Realm of the Dead for I would traffick with the Peaceful Departed.”

Everyone staring at Marco as he spoke, turn their heads down to the board.

Jean gives a throaty laugh. _“Oh you poor fucks. I guess I could humor you.”_

Walking around Marco and kneeling up behind Eren, Jean lets out a little breathe past him towards the flame of the candle.

Sasha lets out a patchy scream that everyone sputters over. Armin who had brought out a legal notepad from who knows where, the nerd, clutches onto the thing like someone was trying to steal his physics notes to throw down the toilet.

“Don’t remove your hands!” Eren shouts towards the candle. “Sasha you saw that too right?”

Sasha nods her head and clutches at the sleeve of Connie’s t-shirt. “I sa-saw it flickering and then like moving towards one side. But it-it’s not even windy in here.”

Eren whispers just under the volume that only Marco seems to hear as Jean sees him tense up again, “I felt it on my neck.”

Now Jean’s just laughing on the ground trying to compose himself before the idiots move on. These kids are going to be a riot to rile up.

“I guess that means something’s in here,” Marco says.

_“Yeah no shit, Sherlock.”_

“Marco, keep going with the calling of the spirit. Maybe it’ll talk to us,” Mikasa says.

Connie speaks up sounding a bit shaky, “just make sure you don’t drag in like an evil demon or some shit, man.”

“Yeah. I got that much,” Marco says sounding spooked as well but annoyed that he’d be reminded of the obvious. No one likes being repeatedly told things that they already know and Marco is no exception.

“Okay so. Here goes everything. I call upon the Peaceful Dead. If there are any among you who would speak to us this night then be with us now in this sacred space. Indicate your presence and readiness by moving the planchatte to ‘yes’.”

The feeling is back again. It’s a pull this time. So much stronger than whatever Jean had felt before. He doesn’t know why, but he’s compelled to grab the planchette and move it. So he does

“Holy shit,” someone whispers. Jean doesn’t know. He’s too confused about why he just did that. Is that how Ouija boards work? Spirits just get dragged into the game without any decision making on their part.

“That’s freaky as fuck,” Eren says.

 _“Yeah,”_ Jean whispers back.

“Armin did you write down what happened?” Mikasa quickly asks.

Armin nods, apprehension written all over his face, “yeah. I got it.”

“Quick, Marco. Ask it something else!” Connie’s says.

“Okay, um. Are you a boy?”

This time the urge comes as strong as the last but Jean expects it. He doesn’t fall victim to whatever spirit powers this group is bringing. He consciously decides to answer the question. I mean it couldn’t hurt to have a conversation with the living after all.

“Dude. It’s a dude,” Connie mutters.

Sasha reaches over Connie and taps Marco’s arm with her free hand, “ask him if he’s cute.”

“Sasha what the heck?” Eren says

“Oh c’mon. I just want to know.”

Mikasa looks a bit put out by the minimum arguing. “Marco just ask.”

“Okay. So ghosty. Sasha wants to know if you’re cute, so are you?”

Jean chuckles and takes a moment to think about it. He was always complimented on his ‘different’ choice of hair back when he’d had more friends. An undercut with the top bleached a few shades lighter than the natural color underneath was pretty hot. And his mom said he had facial features to rival Tom Cruise even though Jean knows she was way over the level of normal exaggeration at that point. Most people said he looked like a horse but that’s an exaggeration too so whatever.

 _“And now we let them wonder,”_ Jean says, smiling to himself.

“Someone’s narcissistic.” Eren turns to Armin, “make sure to put that in your notes.”

“Asshole.”

Marco seems to ignore Eren’s attempts to get Armin to write down his assumption that Jean is probably some ugly ghost and moves on with the questions. “What is your name?”

Grabbing Marco’s hand to steady himself, Jean decides he likes his new position in this game. Especially being so close to a boy who smells slightly like vanilla and coffee. Marco gives an involuntary shiver and the look of confusion on his face makes Jean smirk.

J-E-A-N

“His name is an article of clothing?” Connie asks.

“No,” Armin comments, not even looking up from the legal pad he’s scribbling in. “It’s probably the French name. Like that one French director we learned about in that film class last semester. Jean-Luc Goddard.”

“Pretty fancy name for a ghost stuck in Trost. Wait do ghosts even have a choice on where they haunt or is random?” Connie asks.

It’s a question everyone wonders about. Do the dead stay where they once lived? Do they go back to haunt their enemies or be with their loved ones ‘in spirit’ or are they really damned for all eternity to haunt that place they died. Oh was Jean ready to disappoint a bunch of hopeful college kids.

“I don’t know. Um, Jean, so did you chose to-“

“Oh.” Everyone looks shaken up by the quick response and Jean makes sure to lighten up on any other question he hopes they’ll ask. I guess people weren’t as curious as he’d once been as a college student wondering about the afterlife. Well they probably never thought about it as much as Jean did so it makes sense. Back then it was all Jean ever thought about so it made sense when the thrill of being dead lasted longer than what was probably normal if whatever this was could be considered ‘normal’.

“Now what do we ask him?” Sasha wonders. Everyone gets into a conversation, giving their two cents, on what they should ask him next. Meanwhile, Jean just watches them fluster around somehow oblivious that their talking to an actual spirit yet somehow remain aware of the fact Jean is a spirit  from the way they glance around the room once in a while. It’s all enough to keep Jean in a good mood to forget about his stupid memories.

“Hey, Marco,” Armin says over the noise of everyone. Marco looks at the small blond with a sort of respect you give to someone you know is smart as balls and not in the total nerd way. “Do you think I could ask a couple of questions?”

“I guess. We can do that right Mikasa?”

She glances at the pamphlet laid flat on the table, “yeah. It just suggests a leader to keep the spirit from getting confused. But it looks like he- uh Jean- can hear all of us so I guess its fine as long as we keep it organized.”

“Okay well then, go at it Armin,” Eren says. Marco nods at him and Armin takes it as a second approval and continues.

Turning to his notes on previous pages containing who knows what, Armin lets out a deep breathe he was holding in and Jean feels the energy coming from the small boy like a big rig speeding past one of those lightweight, energy efficient cars he’d heard someone once talk about. “Okay. So Jean, how did you die?”

_“Well, that’s a heavily weighted question.”_

“Sorry,” Armin mutters, backtracking in his notes. “That was probably too heavy a question. Um, actually can you tell us how old you are?”

 _“Okay that’s a bit better.”_ Jean grabs Marco’s hand again and shivers when he makes contact with something cold on his finger. Looking between his fingers over Marco’s, Jean finds a black ring. _“Great fashion sense, freckles.”_

Taking his hand, along with everyone else’s who’s on the playing piece, Jean moves it to the _2_ and then circles the entire board to make a big show of it and brings it back to the _2_.

“22?” Marco whispers. “That’s not very old at all. He’s only a year older than us.”

“Perfect boyfriend age ain’t it Marco?” Connie snickers.

Marco turns a deep shade of red and avoids any sort of eye contact with Eren’s side of the table where Eren is busying himself with looking over Armin’s shoulder at the other questions he has listed on the notepad.

“Don’t be stupid, Connie. Jean’s a freaking spirit he probably doesn’t get the feels like that,” Sasha says trying to hold in a laugh but absolutely failing at it.

 _“Y’all are horrible,”_ Jean snears at them. He makes to grab someone’s hand to give them a piece of his mind. Instead all the energy he had put into moving the piece physically transmits to some freaky wavelength that travels through Jean’s spine and makes his hands tingly again and Jean watches as the collection of hands over the small white playing planchette moves across the board.

_“Okay what the fuck?”_

“What does he mean by ‘yes’?” Mikasa asks Armin.

“I don’t know,” Armin replies. “I didn’t ask a question. And I don’t think anyone else did.”

“Maybe he’s saying he’s totes down to being Marco’s boytoy!” Sasha yells towards the board. Marco hangs his head and covers his face with the only free hand he’s left with after putting down his beer long ago.

Connie joins in all the laughing coming from the Marco’s right side and says, “or maybe he’s confirming that ghost boners are a thing.”

Still maintaining their hands on the board, somehow, Sasha and Connie are laughing so hard, Jean can see the pieces of potato chips in Sasha’s mouth and the potential of a disastrous beer spilling happening on the carpet.

 _“Hardy har har. Aren’t you guys so funny?”_ Jean yells at the two, furrowing his eyebrows in annoyance. _“I don’t even know why it moved to ‘yes’. I don’t even know how the damn piece moved without me touching it.”_

“Okay well now that we know Jean is also gay as fuck, can we move on now?” Eren asks. Looking a bit more calm compared to Marco who’s hiding his antsy movements by biting his lips, Eren shoulders Armin’s arms and whispers something in his ear. Armin, in return, turns pinkish from the close proximity but nods his head.

“Jean. Can you tell us why you’re here?”

Taking a minute or so to think about an answer and maybe to build up the suspense, Jean knows what he wants to tell the group. He’s about to reach for Marco’s hand to move the piece until he decides to try that Jedi mind trick again. _“Alright brain energy things. Let’s see what you’ve got.”_ The energy isn’t as strong as he probably could have gotten it but the piece does wobble on the board between everyone’s fingers and moves slowly but surely across the board. _“Alright Jedi tricks for the win!”_

_S-T-U-C-K_

Jean figures that’s the best answer to give. He is here only because he can’t leave. No other reason than that. He feels so hopeless.

“He’s stuck? What does that mean?” Sasha asks, looking around the small table. Everyone shakes their head wondering what Jean means. All he can do is wait for another question to be asked to somehow tell these people how they all somehow ended up in this current situation of communication difficulties.

Jean should be talking to these people in person, yelling at them to get off his lawn or whatever he would be doing at age- age 47 or something now.

Jean would’ve had kids by now. Well, if he ever caved and married a girl to please his mother. She was always the traditionalist and Jean wasn’t a son who could refuse his mother. It was unhealthy, he knows, but his mother knew it’d all be for the better in the future. A future that never happened, albeit, but a future she hoped her son would be happy in and no way was he going to deny her that.

“Jean. What do you mean you’re stuck?” Armin asks.

What does he mean? It means he’s literally stuck. Stuck in a freaky limbo where he can feel people’s energies and can float across the room but can’t leave the damn perimeter of the house or talk to other spirits that might be roaming around the forest. He’s lonely with no way to have an actual true conversation with a person. He doesn’t know he agreed to a stupid challenge to prove he was a man. He was just a boy. A stupid, immature boy with no friends and he wanted an easy way out of loneliness caused by his own stubbornness. He was an asshole when he was alive. And he deserves what he got. But why was he stuck in a place like this?

He doesn’t know how to answer that question.

All he knows is he wants out. He’s wanted an out from the moment his mother stepped into the house that morning. He wants an out to finally sleep through the night. To finally sleep. Let a soul rest for eternity. Not to roam a single family two-level home for who knows how long. He wants- fuck he just wants

_H-E-L-P_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This chapter came a bit later than the others but still sooner than the scheduled 2 weeks (mostly because I just wanted to get rid of a filler chapter and stop second guessing everything).  
> Critiques and comments are still very much appreciated. Share the fic. Give it kudos. Everything is a good thing.
> 
> I'm hoping go update within 2 weeks with more contenty stuff so keep checking back or bookmark it which is highly suggested. Love you all and I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy writing it! (✿ ♥‿♥)
> 
> tracking the tag [fic: locked](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-locked/)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	4. Lost Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragged from the game in the fashion Jean's accustomed to at this point, he finds out information that he realizes were blocked from his memory for reasons now known to him. And Marco gains a new ability that's got Jean on edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anything, I want to thank everyone that's commented and given this fic kudos. You make my day so much better and it's a great reason to keep writing this thing so muchos gracias! 
> 
> Enjoy!

People say it's like the light at the end of the tunnel. Except for Jean, at the end all he found was a lamp.

They say when you die the light is supposed to be this beacon to a better place. A place where you can finally find the peace you think you deserve. But that’s not what Jean found. I mean it’s a damn shitty lamp with no power to it at all. The bare minimum.

Laying on the floor of the house, Jean isn’t sure what the need for a repeat memory game is. All he sees are the cracks running through the ceiling above his head that make him a little bit nervous. So fragile. One big shake to the house, and the entire system could collapse.

Jean wonders if what he feels is like those cracks in the ceiling above him. Cracks run through him where maybe they don’t matter but with so many accumulating in him, one day when the big storm hits, it could all come to ruin. Jean can already feel himself breaking. Cracking mentally as he tries to understand. Everything would collapse on itself.

Okay. Now he was definitely losing his mind. Comparing himself to the ceiling.

Deciding now is the best time to get this all over with, Jean sits up expecting to see his mother crashing through the front entrance in a fit of rage. But what he sees is unexpected, to say the least.

There’s just sand. Miles and miles of sand. And sand dunes. Looking up and expecting the low hanging ceiling, it seems the ceiling has disappeared somehow in a blink of an eye and now Jean is left with the sun blaring down on his head.

“Um,” he says.

“Hi!” a loud voice says from behind his right ear. Turning his upper body around, he comes face to face with a small woman, cute, with red hair. She seems a bit familiar but Jean can’t place where she’s from. “Welcome. The name’s Petra if you don’t remember.”

“Remember?” Jean asks. Looking around him at the tons of sand soaking in the sun’s heat, Jean doubts he’s ever been here before. Turning back to the woman he asks, “what do you mean remember?”

“Ah. Well it looks like it’s a memory too repressed in that head of yours,” she says, giving Jean’s forehead a thump with her finger for good effect. “It’s been a good long while since you’d personally come here, but no worries. That’s why I’m here to help guide you.”

“Guide me where? What is this place?” Jean asks glancing around him. He doesn’t seem anything of substance in the miles of grainy sand covering the land.

“You’ll see. But until then, anything else you want to be nosy about?” she asks. It seems to be a sarcastic remark but Jean takes it as a chance to get something out of this woman.

“Why am I here? I was just watching those kids playing the game and now-”

“You,” she replies pointing at Jean’s face again. “Are here for a reason. You should’ve been able to remember seeing as this is all a memory but I can give you the gist if you like.”

Jean nods his head and turns fully to look at the woman. She’s rather short but the demeanor about her says she’s lived for longer than Jean could imagine. She seems powerful in that tiny body of hers and Jean makes sure not to cross her path too much.

“The reason you remember the kids up in the real world is because it is a memory most recent from that side. When you come to this world, the memories from that side are still strong as ever. And usually when you leave here, the memories are the same and you can remember what’s happened. For you, you probably don’t remember because those decades of repressing memory on memory caused you to forget the process.”

“Process?” Jean asks. Another thump to the head quiets him and Petra continues.

“Like I was saying, you don’t remember because your brain ran out of cares to give so they made room for more important things. What that is I can’t seem to find since all I see is an airhead in front of me but whatever. To each their own. Now as far as what this place is, this is where you came after Master decided to take you and make you one of us. We needed help to fix things, so we called you. I’m here as a guide through the process of joining spirithood.”

“Okay. What? Who the heck is this Master person?”

“First of all, Master is not a person. Second, I’m going to need you to shut up before I decide I’m done talking for the day.”

Jean shuts his mouth and Petra smiles and resumes her explanation. “This place distorts reality I can assure you that, but if you try to get on the good sides of the officials I’m sure we can make this easy enough for you. Remember this may be a memory but it’s still real and any repercussions may just follow you back to that game you were just watching those kids play. Got it?”

Jean gives a quick nod and Petra takes it as an agreement from Jean.

“Great. Now get up. We’ve got a long ways to go to get this over with.”

Jean’s just about to ask where they’re about to go until Petra turns her head and smiles at him. He’s sure he’s seen that smile before. Walking in pace behind Petra, it gives Jean some time to assess what is going on. He notices the pep in Petra’s step as she swivels her hands around the dress she’s wearing. The design is similar to the ones the waitresses would wear at the restaurant Jean worked at for years with just the hem a bit shorter than what the boss would have regulated.

The dress was so familiar and on Petra it all seemed like déjà vu. She seemed familiar and that wave of the short haircut reminded Jean of the little cashier he recalls everyone, including him for a little while, had a crush on. Her name was-

“Petra?”

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out,” she replies swiftly. Not even turning to face Jean’s questioning voice.

But this can’t be the same Petra. The Petra Jean remembers from The Scouting Legion was cute and sweet and definitely not this sarcastic and rude while explaining things to Jean. She’d been working at the restaurant longer than Jean could even remember and he feels uncertain as to whether this woman walking in front of him is the same girl or just some kind of manifestation to make Jean feel less threatened by the situation. That’s probably it. She’s just part of his coping techniques. This person, thing, in front of him isn’t the real Petra. The real Petra is probably really old and crusty and married to Levi or something with a bunch of kids and grandchildren.

“Whatever you’re thinking, its wrong,” her voices cuts through Jean’s thoughts. “I’m the very same Petra. What? Don’t give me that look. You’ve had that face on where it looks like you’re in deep thought or you’re taking a hard shit for the longest time now.”

Jean sputters and can feel his ears turning red but quickly shuts his gaping mouth. Not sure whether he’s more shocked from Petra’s language or from the fact that she knew what he was thinking about, Jean stays quiet about his thoughts.

“I am the Petra from Scouting Legion. Have been since that place opened up in 1954. It’s been difficult playing off as a different waitress every one or two decades in a town where no one leaves and the population grows but it’s manageable. It’s a hard job being the Master’s bidder. You can ask Erwin or Levi if we see him.”

“What?!” Jean yells breaking the pace and standing in place. Petra continues walking like nothing has happened and Jean hasn’t just yelled into the empty land cooling under the setting sun and continues talking as such.

“I’m not sure if you ever worked there when Hanji was a regular manager but, hey, she’s here too. It’s a downright Scouting Legion reunion. All we needed was our favorite busboy and server and now that you’re one of us, we could open up a second shop down here,” she chuckles at her joke. All Jean feels is betrayal. He’d worked beside these people for years. Since high school. And now he’s being told they’re all some demon’s bidders? Nothing makes sense.

“But you know. I am kind of sorry you got dragged into this Jean. If you weren’t such an idiot that night and had left a bit later in the night, RAB wouldn’t have chosen you to go on that little adventure. And then maybe you wouldn’t be here. Or at least you wouldn’t have been here those 25 years ago. I mean by now you would have been like 40 something and with your eating habits, death would be closer than you think. I mean, really? Double fried onion rings on a Maneuver with extra sauce? Did you have a death wish since you popped out of your mother?”

Stuck in utter silence and shock, Jean doesn’t say a word and Petra takes it as more confirmation and cuts the conversation.

Who the heck is RAB? And why does it sound like they causes Jean’s death out of duty and not as a prank. Everything Petra’s said makes Jean’s life seem like a twisted game and Jean doesn’t want to play. He wants to go back and watch Marco turn red from the jokes Connie and Eren can’t stop making. He wants to watch Armin take stupid notes about Jean’s life. He wants to feel important in their lives.

But he’s stuck in this world until his brain decides it’s had enough for the night.

 

XXXXX

 

After what feels like hours of walking, Jean and Petra make their way over a sand dune and Jean is halted to a stop. Expectations of the day so far have not been going as planned so seeing what’s ahead comes as a not so surprising wonder.

The two come face to face with what Jean can only describe as either a large town or a small city. The place has glass buildings for crying out loud. Mindlessly walking behind Petra, with his jaw hanging open, Jean can see that the place runs far and wide as far as Jean can see.

As they pass through the archway, Jean notices writing on the inner workings and borders. Writing that looks to be from another language and as Jean looks closer, he notices the swirls and accents on it reminds him of something. They look like the writing on the papers thrown across the floor of the room upstairs in the bedroom.

“What is this place?” Jean asks. Turning to where Petra is still walking in front of him, Jean finds the inner workings of an entire city. Buildings and homes line the sidewalks. What looks like streetlamps from the 30s that require fire to light the night, stand cold and empty. The place is deserted and it seems it’s been that way for decades.

“This, Jean, is Utgard. It’s where ‘lost’ souls come to stay until they’re needed by Master. Basically those that have sinned are brought here to repent until they have a much better use to them. This town is what they’ve created in the past to sort of ‘keep their roots’ but it’s a bunch of garbage and a waste of time considering where they’re headed.”

“And I’m guessing you’re not going to tell what that would be, huh?”

Petra turns back and for a second Jean catches a glimpse of that old smile he remembers greeting him every day at work. The sky which has slowly been dimming since they walked through the archway, is reaching the horizon and the glow behind Petra seems ethereal. And considering the place that Jean’s been brought, the dark glow behind her seemingly innocent smile is fitting. _“She’s a demon’s bidder”_ , Jean reminds himself.

Making their way through what looks like the city’s main street, Jean is able to look into the windows of the homes and businesses. Looking for something that could tell him what kind of creatures lives in this town before it was deserted Jean’s pretty disappointed when all he finds is a load of dust and grime on shaky windows. Everything inside the buildings look so – mundane. Like they were just normal people trying to live normal lives under the real world. Or wherever this place is relative to the real world. But they definitely lived under the eyes of whatever lies in that extravagant building on the other side of town. And as Petra leads them closer to the large mansion-like building, Jean can feel why these ‘sinners’, as Petra put it, would think to revolt. The energy from the front entrance was fierce and even being yards away, Jean felt anxious about all of it. The smell of sulfur and copper overpowers the peace at certain times and Jean does everything to keep from getting nauseous.

He’s walking into a death sentence. Did he walk into a death sentence peacefully last time he was here? Were there people living here, watching him struggle to make the way up the road to the large metal doors the last time he was here? Did they sympathize with him then and would they do it now if he decided to turn and run?

Before Jean can decide if following Petra is such a useful thing to do with his time back, she’s turned around to face him and it takes a while for Jean to realize she’s stopped walking before running into her.

“Careful. Now what we do, since you still don’t remember, is meet the keeper. You might know their name. Does Hanji ring any bells? Well anyway she’s in that building over there,” Petra points over to a rather large building that could belong to a bank or on Wall Street. “They’re in there. They won’t tell you much since it’s their job to be cryptic as hell while still giving as much information as they can. So – good luck. I’ll be out here when you’re done.”

She makes her way down the street, getting closer to the mansion, leaving Jean by himself. He could run if he wanted. Where to, he has no idea. Anywhere could be better than facing whatever was in that building. Especially if it meant avoiding Hanji. The last encounter Jean remembers having with them was not the prettiest of affairs. They tried to pluck one of Jean’s eyebrow hairs and said it was for research to see if he was ‘compatible for the master-“ for the _Master_ plan.”

She’d been doing research on Jean for this moment. This walk down death lane. Jean collapses to his knees struggling to get air into his lungs. This is too much.

“This is all too much. I don’t-I don’t understand,” he mutters into his thighs, keeling over himself trying to find that darkness. He wants to go back to the damn stupid game.

“You can leave whenever you want, you know?” a voice calls from behind Jean. He doesn’t have the energy to lift his head let alone find out who it is. But the voice. It’s familiar. “Educate yourself so you’re not swinging in the dark is my motto and I believe is a good way to live your life.”

“God is everyone freaking connected in the after-life?” Jean yells, lifting his head, at the dark sky. With no one to light the cold, dark streetlamps, the roads have turned pitch black. Feeling nervous, Jean turns to where the voice had come from. As he swivels his head around he comes face-to-face with large glasses and unruly hair. “Hanji?”

“What’s up, buttercup? Come for a second dose of crazy?”

“No. Um, apparently this is a memory that I don’t remember anything about and well-“

“Fantastic! This means I can give the welcome spiel again. Alright, hold on,” she says. Jean does nothing to show he’s going anywhere and waits for them to continue. “First I would like to welcome you to the gates of the rest of your own personal hell. To your left you’ll see the path you just walked down to get to my neck of the woods. And to the right is the palace of Utgard where Master sometimes shows up during that time of the month. Not to be confused with that lady special time of the month. I mean- you should never make assumptions on a person’s gender, of course. Master might be a part of the ‘lady week a month’ club, you never know. But anyway, that doesn’t matter. What I’m here is for the experience. I know why you’re here and what is to happen. And now if you’ll follow me we should get started on the process of spirithood.”

Not having much of a choice in options, Jean makes to get off the cold ground and follow Hanji toward the large building. Glancing over his shoulder, he can make out the distant figure of Petra leaning against one of the unlit streetlamps biting into something in her hands. Jean doesn’t stick around to find out what it could be.

Jean makes his way through the doors and is assaulted with the heat of a roaring fireplace on the far wall and stacks on stacks of papers and books threatening to tip over. Hanji is running around, digging through one of the stacks near the left wall where a bookcase is full to the brim with books the size of encyclopedias Jean remembers seeing similar at the public library.

“Alright now if you’ll just take a seat somewhere near the desk we can get started as soon – shit where the fuck  – as soon as I find those papers,” Hanji says, pointing offhandedly towards a large oak desk off the side of the fireplace.

Jean makes his way towards the one chair that has less things placed on it than the others, making sure not to tip over any of the piles of papers. He doesn’t need to anger Hanji and get on their bad side. Especially when he has no idea how important they might be under the Master. Or what kind of crazy can a crazy person intensify to if made upset.

“I’m just the librarian,” they callout from behind a stack a books. Jean turns to find them but can’t seem to find Hanji. They pop their head from around a couple of large books closer than Jean had expected them to be. They make their way towards where Jean is crawling over books to get to the seat, still looking for something. “A special librarian that keeps track of the records of people coming in and out of Utgard. I have tracks of their histories and sometimes their futures. Most of them end up with Master but there’s a couple that end up on the bigger track of our mission. Our mission being to spread, of course. So those lives are usually fated before anything and I have files on them to make sure they stay in line. The boring stuff really.”

“And what happens when they don’t stay in line?” Jean asks uncertainly. He doesn’t know how much he should know or ask from Hanji. Acting nonchalant yet interested about this new information coming at Jean might help in getting more out of the crazy librarian.

“They get to meet Master,” they reply quietly, seemingly lost in thought. “I hope you know you’re a special case. I explained why the last time you were here when the exchange happened so I won’t go into great detail but you did well to help fix the mission and we are thankful for your devotion and slight willingness to participate.”

“Okay what are you even talking about?” Jean’s finally made it to the chair and he slumps into it, letting his feet finally rest after what feels like 25 years of pressure having built up in his heels.

“The switch. Soul for a soul? Make a broken piece whole again before the huge repercussions can take effect. AH! There it is!” Hanji yells from on top of a stack of books. They’re holding a file that seems as ordinary as the others. They run down the other stacks like a damn Mary Poppins and plops onto the desk in front of where Jean is sitting. “See here. This is your file. Explains your entire life. And like last time, no touchy. Your path was special and considering the current events up in the real world, you aren’t allowed to hear anything about it this time around. If you happen to remember at some point then that’s great. But you won’t ever be able to do anything about it so we’re not going to waste any time.”

“It feels like we’ve been wasting time already,” Jean says, irritated at the proximity. Hanji hasn’t left Jean’s face since they sat down and Jean was getting tired of smelling her lack of hygiene. “Speaking of time, do you happen to take any of it in bathing or what?”

“No point. Too much work to do,” they wave offhandedly flipping through the file. Laying it down on the desk, Jean can see what looks like a photograph sticking out from the manila folder. He can’t make out much, but it seems to be old. A photo of a couple holding a baby, Jean can’t recognize any of them but the couple seems familiar. The mother seems to have freckles.

“So what we’re going to do instead is give a breakdown of what happened last time you were here. You were brought for an exchange. Soul for a soul as I said before. Master was personally in charge of the transaction so the details- they may be rather unnecessary and gory for you right now. But the exchange had gone well and since your other half is still there, we couldn’t decide if you’d be necessary to keep for the Master’s time of the month. So we released you. It explains why you’re up in the real world. We didn’t need you and you were way too inexperienced and useless for the mission, so ‘goodbye Jean’ I guess.” They give a chuckle and Jean is left to stare at their face, breathing getting shallower.

This is so fucked.

 

XXXXX

 

Jean’s given about a couple minutes to straight up hyperventilate. Minutes to drag air into closing lungs. Everything is closing. Jean feels like the light from the fireplace is bent on burning his skin alive even being feet away from it.

This place is toxic and it’s getting under his skin. He wants an out. He’s wanted an out from all of this since the night we was left alone in the damn house. But now he’s stuck here in this building where books and pages threaten to collapse on Jean. Where a crazy person or spirit or whatever is running around trying to find pages missing from their ‘study’ on – dead people.

In between his panting, he realizes another person has joined them in the room.

He looks familiar too. The attitude of the military-type apparent in his stance just inside the threshold of the library. He’s taking off his coat and saying something to Hanji that comes as incoherent to Jean. His blonde hair plastered to his head; he reminds Jean of Captain America and he snaps back into himself, breathing coming even harder to him. He can feel their eyes cutting into the side of his head and the distant murmuring makes Jean uncomfortable. They’re talking about him. He doesn’t like being talked about as if he wasn’t there.

But was he even all there anymore?

 _“What the fuck is Erwin doing here,”_ Jean thinks to himself.

Bent over himself in the seat, Jean takes continuous deep breaths and tries to choke down the air to replace the rising feeling of vomit. Dry-heaving is not on the plan and he can’t be seen like this. Not by Hanji. And most definitely not by his old manager, Erwin. No one should know that he breaks down. They can’t know how fucking weak he is. How much he’s tired. How much he needs- needs help.

 

XXXXX

 

Everything spinning comes to stop.

Jean can hear people talking coming from around him. They’re still talking about him, he knows it. They always do this. Talk about him behind his back and Jean would knock some sense into them if he could just catch his breathe. It feels like he’s been running laps around Trost.

Listening closer to find out what they think of Jean – whether they agree; he’s weak – much of it is murmurs that seems distant and then he hears it above the static in his head. Something about helping. Coming up to rest on his forearms, Jean tries to figure out what’s happening. He needs help.

Looking up from the floor, a cold dusty carpet, Jean comes face-to-face with someone’s back. He makes to sit up and assess the situation until he realizes where he is. He’s at the house.

Laying back down to collect his thoughts, Jean stares up at the cracks in the ceiling. From where he’s lying, 25 years later to the present, he feels like there’s more cracks than there were before. More faults that could cause major destruction. And Jean can feel it crashing down already. Cracks in the support beams of his entire sanity and previous knowledge of why he was there. What was his purpose at this house? Nothing. It was all nothing. He was useless scraps, thrown out to a world that doesn’t matter to some kind of greater picture where he isn’t wanted. Fucking useless.

“Jean? You still there?”

Marco’s voice cuts through the fog growing in his head. He doesn’t want to move but something makes him lift his head. Marco wants to talk and Jean was going to talk to him even if he felt like shit.

“Jean?”

“Yo Jean are you there or not, man?” Connie cuts through.

Jean grabs Marco’s wrist and moves the planchette to _yes_.

Marco lets out a shiver that Jean can feel run through his own hand. He gives a side glance towards Jean’s direction and Jean can feel his eyes searing through his face. Deep brown eyes that seem to find Jean in the fog. It made Jean feel both uncomfortable and warmly rooted to the present for whatever reason and he immediately cuts away from Marco’s face and looks around at the people around the table.

They all seem relieved that Jean’s returned from the other side. From the looks of it, hours in the other world visiting Utgard equates to a couple of minutes in this real world. Getting up off the ground – mostly to distance himself from Marco’s wandering looks – Jean goes to stand across the table behind Mikasa and waits for any other questions. He’s feeling a little bit better. The after effects of the trip have started to fade although it does make him a bit dizzy thinking too much about it at all. He’s not useless. If anything, he can give these guys a show.

“Jean,” Marco whispers in the middle of everyone’s chattering. They all quiet down and watch Marco. “Are you trapped?”

Finding the energy to not have to grab someone’s hands – also adamantly refusing contact with anyone at this point – Jean moves the piece around the board back to _yes_.

“Do you know how you died?”

“Was it an accident or were you murdered?”

“What the heck, Marco?” Eren mutters towards Marco angrily. “You can’t be that blunt. What if he gets mad and curses us or something?”

“No,” Armin says, grabbing Eren’s shoulder. He seems to calm down a bit but is still on edge, looking at the corners of the room searching for Jean.

Jean looks back at Marco and he’s met head on with those brown eyes, pupils slightly dilated. _“He sees something,”_ Jean whispers.

Moving the piece, Jean tells them _no_.

Sasha speaks up now asking, “No as in he was murdered or that it was an accident?”

Connie shrugs his shoulders, grabbing for a mother chug of his beer. Everyone’s gone quiet waiting for another question or reply from Jean to Sasha’s question. But Jean is pinned. Marco won’t look away.

“You were taken. Your life. It was taken from you, wasn’t it?”

 _Yes_...

“You’re in pain?”

The answers keep coming faster from Jean as he begins to vocalize the answers to Marco’s questions. _Yes._

 “You want to find a way to get away from the pain.”

 “Were you in the house when I first got here? When I was talking to Eren on the phone?”

“You have blond hair with an undercut?”

Jean pauses at that before he can answer. Jean grabs at his faded old jeans having nothing else to hold on to. What the fuck is this?

“Marco what the fuck?” Eren whispers. Even Sasha’s stopped her constant chewing on loud potato chips.

Bringing his closed fist onto the small coffee table, Marco asks again. “Your-your hair. It’s an undercut. Brown underneath and-and blond on top?”

Breathing becoming heavy again, the planchette stutters under everyone’s joined hands as Jean tries to control the pulsing energy to his answer.

“Are you standing behind Mikasa?”

Everyone’s head turns towards Mikasa. She hasn’t reacted as largely as say Sasha who’s went straight to grabbing Connie’s leg with her one freehand covered in chip dust.

Jan staring straight into Marco’s eyes, nods his head.

“I can see you….” comes the softest whisper – like it’s coming from the shadows itself.

 

XXXXX

 

"Marco. You’re freaking everyone out, buddy,” Connie says.

“What do you mean you can see him? Marco, can you see Jean?” Mikasa asks. Her voice sounds hollow to Jean. All of their voices sound distant. Like he’s in a cave and their deep inside where Jean can’t reach them.

And then Marco’s cuts straight through and rings in his ear. “We have to help him fix this.”

Eren’s yelling before anyone else can even respond. “What do you mean fix this? What exactly are we even fixing? And what the hell do you mean you see Jean, Marco? He’s a spirit ghost thing. You can’t suddenly gain the power to see the dead in their living rooms. Armin this is crazy we should just let go or say goodbye to Jean. Whatever the fucking protocol is.”

“NO!” Marco’s throat scratches into the night. Everyone stills. “Something doesn’t feel right and I think-I think helping Jean might fix things.”

 _The Master needed you to fix things._ A shudder goes through Jean’s spine and he watches Marco react the same.

“The energy is wrong. We have to help him.”

“That’s a bunch of shit, Marco, and you know it. He’s getting in your head. Whatever this spirit thing is, it’s evil. It’s controlling you, Marco, and we need to put an end to it. It probably wants to take your soul or something,” Eren says.

“Aw c’mon Eren, you’re being a baby,” Connie’s voices comes in. “I believe Marco. Something feels off and maybe helping Jean find answers or whatever will help. What do you think Mikasa.”

“It couldn’t hurt to try,” she replies.

Eren glares at Mikasa which turns instantly to a look of pure betrayal. “You guys are so gullible. Jean’s evil and I know it. I’m calling out of this game.”

Before Eren can even remove his hand, Jean takes the chance to energize a reply to his accusations.

_L-O-S-E-R_

“Well if Jean’s evil, he’s my kind of evil,” Connie laughs into his hand, watching Eren turn a funny shade of red as he knits his eyebrows. “Hey, Jean, if only I could see you too I’d give a freaking high-five for that man.”

Jean smiles down at the bald head, content knowing that even if they leave for the night, never to come back, he at least made someone happy with his circumstances.

“Eren,” Armin quietly says pulling on his jacket. “We should stay and see what Jean needs. It is part of the game after all. To find out if the spirit needs help with passing through to the other side and helping them if they need it.”

“Yeah what Armin said,” Sasha cries out. “Maybe Jean just needs a boost to the other side. Or maybe we might get sent out to go on an adventure to redeem his name.

 _“Okay it’s most definitely not that, potato girl,”_ Jean mutters.

“Marco, how much of Jean can you see?” Mikasa’s soft voice cuts through Sasha and Connie’s joined conspiracy theories.

“It’s just a faint figure,” Marco says looking Jean up and down. Jean feels uncomfortable but doesn’t move from where he’s still standing behind Mikasa. He’s barely there but I can feel him too. Like he’s there watching us the entire time we’ve been here.”

“You’ve had this feeling since you got here?” Armin asks.

“Yeah.”

“Marco. I think what we should do is close up for the night,” Mikasa suggests. Jean steps forward. He doesn’t want them to leave him. To stop trying to talk to him. He doesn’t want to go back.

Marco watches him and hesitates for a second but nods his head. “We’re not going anywhere Jean. I promise to do what I can to help you. We’ll find out what happened in this when you died.”

“Yeah,” Connie says. ‘Now that we know a name and approximate looks with Marco’s spirit-seeing powers, we can do research and find clues on Jean’s life and death records.”

“I’m sure the library will have records of stuff like that,” Sasha says enthusiastically.

Eren’s the only one sulking against the table, listening to his friends talk about plans to do more work. Jean can sympathize. It all sounds like so much work for just one lonely ghost.

But he can also appreciate no matter what anyone says, so he doesn’t say anything against the group’s plan making.

“Marco. You should say the goodbye chant and then we can put everything away,” Eren mutters

_“What. You don’t think I won’t haunt you?”_

“Okay. Um let’s see.” Grabbing the paper off the floor, Marco begins the exiting chant. “I clear this space of all negativity and of the energy of people or things that have no purpose in this household. I ask that this clearing be gentle and that all of this energy be returned to its source."

With a sudden wind from nowhere discernible, Jean feels the energy drain from the room. As if a vacuum was brought in and the power Jean once felt coming from the group was sucked in and trapped somewhere Jean could never reach.

 _“I guess the conversations over. Not like I’m going to go anywhere, though.”_ Moving backwards towards the wall, Jean leans back and watches the group silently close the board and put their things away.

Marco has chosen to sit there, staring at the place Jean had once stood. His eye twitches as he glances side to side every once in a while. He seems as lost as Jean feels.

“Marco, are you okay?” Mikasa asks grabbing a hold of his shoulder. Marco flinches from the unexpected touch but relaxes immediately once he sees her face.

“Yeah I’m good. I just- I can’t see him anymore. It probably only happens when the energy is strong from the Ouija board. It’s okay. We should probably get some rest if we want to do that research I promised before the weekend ends.”

Mikasa nods in agreement and everyone seems to simultaneously move towards their respective sleeping bags.

After a few minutes of fumbling, all is quiet in the house.

It’s Eren’s voice that cuts the silence and Jean sucks in his teeth in annoyance. He’s slid down the wall near the entrance to the hallway and as he listens to Eren mumble about how fun this was, Jean smiles at the look Marco gives staring at the ceiling.

The same ceiling Jean spent admiring the cracks of. Jean can see his blown-out brown eyes trying to make out lines in the dark as Eren mentions how old this is house must be.

Hold long have those cracks been given the chance throw so deep and long. Running down entire lengths of board and plaster.

When Marco closes his eyes, Jean’s still looking. Looking at the cracks in the ceiling. At the cracks in his life with a growing new one coming from the boy lying where most of the cracks seem to accumulate. Lying right damn center in the most faults the ceiling could ever have. In the most faults Jean has ever felt in him. But Jean’s not worried. Marco can support himself and keep the ceiling from falling he has no doubt.

He likes having him there as support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So with this chapter I might've planned to just get on with the content to the plot and then got sidetracked with a totally different idea and yeah. I hope you enjoyed reading the mind numbing trip. And yes, Petra's kind of a bitch. You'll see where I'm going with this in later chapters. 
> 
> Until then please give kudos, comments are so great (they make me warm inside), and tell friends to read and share the thing. THANK YOU!!
> 
> tracking the tag [fic: locked](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-locked/)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	5. Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean sees a couple new faces. Well at least they're new in that depleting memory bank of his. Marco might be the sweetest, idiotic piece of boy ever but the passion is there and it's what Jean needs in all of this uncertainty.

“Huh?”

“I’m telling you, the football players have a bet going that no one will do it. And since you used to be the weakest link in the class, you should take the challenge.”

“Okay but-“

“No buts Kirschstein. Are you in or what? We need to head out soon and if you’re not coming with, we’re leaving. But you’d be missing the chance at redemption if you don’t come with.”

The back of the restaurant is dark and musty. He can smell the days old burger juices festering in the trash next to where the four of them are standing. The man he’s speaking to is so loud and abrasive Jean’s surprised no one’s come outside to see what the commotion’s about.

Jean had come out to throw the trash away after a long shift during the busiest day in the after-football season when he’d run into them. The damn tradition was the stupidest thing Jean’s ever heard a town doing. Holding a final after-season scrimmage for the towns’ people and senior players? Really?! And on _New Year’s Eve_ none the less? But, I guess, it’s fine. Just means extra hours which equals extra money for next semester’s textbooks. College was expensive but it was always those damn textbooks that had him struggling month to month – even with living at home.

Jean was just closing the lid of the large dumpster when they’d appeared from out of the dark and scared Jean. They were quiet for 3 young adults out on the drunkest night in a kid’s life. Even an adults life for that matter.

Parties were going on everywhere. Both New Year’s and celebration of a great year in football with wins against their rival school from Maria. The most prominent party being at an alumni football player’s house. He’d been at the high school when Jean was dragging through those four years. Now, with a full scholarship to the best school in the state, ol’ quarterback Thomas came back to continue his reign as best senior night after-party host.

Yup. Thomas Wagner. The very same, Jean once had a crush on for years in elementary school. He was cute all through grade school – even those days that Jean was up close and personal with the guy’s biting words and ever sharper fists. Jean never tried to fight back when anything came to Thomas. He was weak. And the guy once paid all the attention Jean lacked from other people he thought would care. So, of course, the idea of pleasing Thomas Wagner piqued Jean’s interest.

“I don’t know. What’s the challenge, again?”

The taller in the group waves his entire limb, trying to get into the conversation. The guy’s sweating bullets and if he could siphon through the different stenches in the back alley with sheer mind power, Jean doesn’t doubt the guy smells as bad as he lets off. Jean can’t make out the features of his face but he notices he pales a bit before answering Jean’s question. Also the guy has a nose that could only belong to the special few who need the strongest sense of smell. I mean it was big enough. “You just have to spend the night at the haunted house down in the woods. By yourself. And we’re the ones Thomas wants to confirm the whole thing happened.”

“Okay but why you guys?” Jean ask the three. He can’t remember how they know Jean. Did they go to school together and just never talked? Who even were these people? “Why are you guys so interested in me doing this?”

The bulkiest of the group – Jean can’t remember his name – cuts in. “It’s not that bad, really.” He glances down at the short girl that hasn’t said a word since they found Jean about to leave for his warm bed. Jean notices she’s dressed in just a large hoodie that looks like it could belong to the taller one and shorts too short for the too cold December weather.  She’s either the crazy one in the group or the most hardcore woman Jean will ever have the fortune of meeting.

She finally answers Jean’s question, face showing know emotion at all. She has eyes as gray as the clouds hanging over the town from the leaving snowstorm. They were filled with as much cold as them too. “We chose you because we know about everything.”

“Everything?!” Jean yells into the might. He quickly claps a hand over his mouth, hoping nobody heard him. He doesn’t need to explain himself to total strangers. “I mean – what do you mean everything?”

She lets out a tiny smirk, “About Thomas and your guys’ friendship mostly. And that you were the most picked on kid in the class for mostly one main reason other than the fact that you’re kind of a dick to people.”

“Look Jean,” sir bulky cuts in before Jean can get even angrier than he hopes he looks. These people were starting to annoy him, making him stand out in the biting, winter night. He’d only brought a hoodie for the trek back home from work and the jeans he had on were just not cutting it. “The times are changing and people are starting to accept it more and this could help you look like you’re not as wimpy as the stereotypes go.

“And how do you know how the stereotypes go, huh Reiner?” Wait. Reiner? When did he remember that name? It’s almost like they told him but he doesn’t remember them ever-

Reiner glances towards the taller one and says, “I just know. Trust me. The words have already cut as deep as they can and they can’t get me anymore.” Jean hopes he doesn’t look as dumbfounded as he feels from this new information? Maybe he’s not so alone. But what does he mean by ‘anymore’? How do you escape assholes and be so affirmative about it never happening again?

“Now about helping you,” cutting through Jean’s thoughts again. “They say the house isn’t even that scary. Apparently the stories about the haunting are all lies and there isn’t any ghosts haunting the place.”

The skinny giant, still sweating, wrings his hands out.

It’s all so obvious.

Why hadn’t Jean seen the signs of the shadiest deal to ever happen behind a burger joint?

RAB strikes again.

 

 

XXXXX

 

 

Jean finds himself in the dark.

It’s not the darkness of the alleyway behind Scouting Legion. The smell is different. The smell of rotting food has been swapped with the nauseating stench of sulfur and Jean immediately tenses.

It’s not the same city Hanji had described to him. This wasn’t the streets he’d followed Petra and Erwin down to get to the entrance of Utgard’s mansion. He’s in the dark. Literally and mentally.

He feels the energy change around him before he sees it. The room grows colder it was three seconds ago and it feels like the dark room has somehow gotten smaller from the presence of whatever is lurking in the shadows. Jean spins on the spot, trying to find it. It has to be that thing Petra was talking about.

The Master. Ready to make the exchange Jean still doesn’t completely understand. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him and the circling he’s doing is making the anxiety even worse. Deciding the best plan of action is to find a solid surface to have behind his back, Jean choses a direction to walk in and heads that way.

Hopefully the way he chose is towards an exit and not anywhere near the growing dark energy in the room.

 

XXXXX

 

Their eyes. It’s that light Jean needed. To light the path to death. It was so close. The end is so near he could taste the metal tang of hell. And in return, it burned into his skull; as painful a feeling as burning your arm over an open flame.

So destructive, yet it fascinated Jean.

How could death hold so much light in its eyes yet cause so much hurt?

It knows when to turn itself off.

 

XXXXX

 

Looking across the room at all of the sleeping faces, Jean digs through every memory he’s ever had to find those faces in the darkness. Maybe if he could remember details, he could describe them to Marco and they’d had more to go off of when they go out and research.

 _If_ they go out and research.

There’s a chance Marco was more drunk than he’d led on and that he’ll change his mind once he wakes up. He could decide Jean was just a figment of his drunken state and that he was just joking. He could play it all off and forget while Jean waited for him.

No. He wasn’t going to rely on Marco. If he doesn’t remember anything, than he doesn’t remember anything. Forcing something wasn’t going to help anything.

People come and go. Maybe someone less drunk will find Jean as a worthy cause if Marco decides to play off last night.

_“God. I sound like I just had a one night stand with the guy and I’m waiting for him to wake up and leave me.”_

Sucking his teeth, he decides his perch on the couch above Sasha and Connie’s entwined bodies is not where he wants to be. Throughout the night the two had been farting up a storm in their respective sleeping bags until someone – Eren – threw a rogue jacket at Connie’s head, successfully waking up them both and giving them a good yelling to.

Moving across the room, Jean finds himself sitting next to Marco. He’s sleeping, face towards the cold fireplace.

 _“What a stupid place to sleep. The wind comes right through that thing,”_ Jean chastises. As if on cue, Marco lets out a shiver. Jean scoots his body so that he’s covering the hearth and a grin crosses his face as Marco’s shivering stops.

Given the silence and long while left until the sun starts making its way up over the horizon, Jean is able to really get a look at the birthday boy.

Jean had noticed the multitude of freckles on the man’s face last night when he’d first walked in. Now, up close, Jean is able to really see how many of them there are. The things litter his face and travel down, skipping his ears, straight to his neck where they disappear under the edge of his t-shirt.

Jean remembers the brown eyes from last night that seemed to pierce through him and for some reason he reaches they were open right now. To see him, counting the dots on his nose and watching his eyelashes flutter, slowly opening.

Wait. Shit!

Marco’s eyes open and Jean sees his eyes glassy with sleep and hopes to everything that he’ll just fall back asleep. He doesn’t want Marco awake.

Yes, he’d just wanted Marco to open his eyes but that was just to see those eyes again. He’s had his fill now and he wants them to go back to being glazed over like a damn doughnut and to have them shut away from the world for a few more hours.

And if he really can see Jean, he doesn’t want to face the embarrassment of being caught staring so close to his face.

Approximately 6 inches away.

When did he even get so close?

Scooting on his ass, backwards, Jean tries to bring a normal amount of room between him and Marco. His eyes continue to flutter, trying to focus in the dim light of the summer moon.

Seeming to find a point of focus, a sleepy smile glides onto his face. “I’m glad I met you,” Marco whispers. His eyes don’t come to lay on where Jean is sitting, slightly to the side of the fireplace. Doubting Marco can even see him without that same energy pulsing through the room as earlier in the night, Jean comes back closer to Marco to hear his quiet whispers.

“I don’t know why; but, I feel like we were supposed to meet.” He frowns a little, just long enough for Jean to notice, until it snaps into a more serious face. “Something about this place never felt right. Even from the stories mom would tell me and my sister at bedtime. I want to know. I want-,” Marco pauses and takes a breath, assessing whether he should continue. His irises dilate during the process and Jean feels like he could drown in them and be completely okay with it. Letting the breath out, he resumes. “I wanna know why I feel so empty sometimes. Certain things trigger it and then I just feel like something’s missing. And I want to know why. Talking to you, Jean; it felt like I wasn’t that empty. I expected to feel upset the whole night but then you spoke and it just went away.”

Jean leans into Marco’s words, hanging on to that feeling of similarity. Marco knows the feeling. He knows what it feels like to feel out of place.

“I promise I’m going to find out why, Jean. I-I promise.” Fluttering his eyes closed, he falls back asleep as if he’d never woken up and changed Jean’s trust at all. Marco understands and he’s going to help.

 _“Thank you,”_ Jean whispers to him. Leaning his forehead against Marco’s, _“Thank you so much for caring.”_

 

XXXXX

 

It’s another couple of hours until everyone else starts to stir. The sun has been up for over an hour and Jean expects it to be around 6am when he hears someone across the room cough and grumble about the cold.

He hadn’t left Marco’s side the entire time, making sure the wind couldn’t touch the guy. The cold never bothered him anyway so the sacrifice wasn’t that big at all. More like he was just being a friend.

Friend.

Could he even call Marco a friend? They’d only spoken for an hour or so with little talking actually coming from Jean’s side other than the occasional _yes_ or _no_. But they connected. Some weird, freaky spirit connection that went beyond the cheap Ouija board.

Sometimes when you meet someone, there’s a click. Jean never believed in love at first sight but he believe in that click. And with Marco, it was there. The guy was growing on him.

Staring at the freckled idiot, Jean watches as Marco’s eyes flutter open again. Looking a little less glazed over, he lets out a yawn and flips over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Looking up as well, the cracks don’t seem to be as much as they were last night. Many seem to have just vanished from existence and Jean glances down at Marco’s sleepy face and smirks at the smile growing on his face.

Marco can see it too.

Things are changing. They’re going to change and Jean knows it.

The sound of Marco squirming in his sleeping bag seems to grab the attention of a sleepy Eren lying next to him 2 feet away. Jean stays sitting near the cold as Eren flops over onto his stomach and turns his head towards Marco. Marco looks back at Eren. He looks less aggressive and more docile just waking up than last night.

It’s really pissing Jean off.

“Good morning,” Marco whispers.

Nobody else has really woken up yet and seeing as Eren doesn’t look interested in full conversation with more than one person, Eren responds, throat sounding hoarse, “Hey. What time is it?”

“It looks like it’s about 6. Still pretty early.”

“Yeah…. So research today, right?”

“Mhm,” Marco hums, looking back up at the cracks in the ceiling. “We need to find out the history of this place and what happened the night Jean died. It’ll probably be in the town’s records or maybe we’ll find a newspaper or something with information from that-“

“Marco,” Eren cuts Marco off. He looks more sobered up than a minute ago. “Are you sure about this? I mean like. Do you really think this is a good idea? What if messing with these spirits causes some bad chain reaction and we end up cursed or something? Jean seems like a cool guy – even though he did call me a loser – but what if this is something bigger? What if they want something if we try to get Jean?”

Marco chuckles. “That’s a lot of ‘what if’s, Eren. But I think we’re good. We’re more than good. Whatever happens will happen but-,” Marco pauses. “I need to do this.”

Marco turns his head and his body follows it, turning away from Jean completely. From where he’s sat, Jean has full sight of the stupid smile coming to Eren’s face and Marco’s back.

“Okay. I’m with you through this, Marco.”

“Thanks. It really means a lot. Having your support is-it’s nice.”

A clutter sounds from across the room. “Are you guys done whispering over there? Fucking hangover is going off in my head right now,” Connie’s voice comes out rough and smothered by the jacket he’s turned to using as an extra pillow. A groan sounds from the lump of cheap fabric and a growl begins to go off in its neighbor lump. Look like Sasha’s waking up.

Giving Sasha’s body a kick first, Connie smashes over to her and grabs her around what’s probably her waist and cuddles straight into her. Sasha whines at the movement but stills for a couple seconds. And then the snores coming roaring through the house again.

“Those guys are so obnoxious,” Eren mutters.

“Yeah but they’re good together. They complement each other pretty well. Kind of like you and Armin?” Marco asks quietly. Eren doesn’t seem to notice how reserved Marco gets and turns over to smile at the still sleeping blonde on his other side. He’s curled up into himself, like a squishy ball, soft snores coming quietly from the tiny gap he’s left open from completely covering his face.

“Yeah,” comes Eren’s soft reply, not moving his eyes from Armin.

Marco looks wistful but smiles through. “You guys should just make it official already. Ask him out. He’s not going to say no.”

“I know. There’s just certain things I need to think about before I even think about that,” Eren says. He turns to look up at the ceiling. Marco and Jean’s little secret connection. “I mean Armin’s sweet and all but I just want to be there for him and it’s not like I’m not already. I just-I need to find myself too, Marco. And dragging Armin down might not be a good idea.”

“You never know. Maybe he wants to be there if you do get dragged down. You’ll never know unless you try,” Marco suggests.

_“That’s pretty hypocritical of you, Marco.”_

“Yeah. I guess you’re right,” Eren pauses, lost in thought. “Thanks bro.”

“No problem.” The gusto in Marco’s words have all but faded but Jean can tell by his tone that there’s a forced smile on Marco’s face right now. And it kills him.

 _“You deserve better,”_ Jean whispers at Marco’s back.

Eren goes back to closing his eyes, seeing as nobody’s planned on waking up anytime soon and soon he’s snoring away rivaling Connie’s loud snores.

Marco watches him for ages until deciding to make better use of his time and start the search for food in the piles of empty snack bags in Sasha’s general vicinity.

The noise seems to wake up Mikasa and she joins Marco but they soon realize it’s all useless.

“There isn’t anything in here. They ate it all,” Mikasa says with a huff. She stands up looking around the room for a second while Marco keeps hope and continues rifling through the piles of trash. “We should get going soon anyway. We can just go out to eat at an IHOP or maybe at Scouting Legion’s again?”

That’s sure to grab Jean’s attention. _“It’s still open? But what about Erwin and-and Levi and what?!”_

“Yeah, I guess we can do that,” Marco says, sitting back on his heels. He seems flustered from all the searching and the guy is probably starving considering he hadn’t done much but drink that one bottle of beer last night. “I just – I mean – I’m just scared about waking up those two,” he laughs pointing at Sasha and Connie who’ve turned into a singular mesh of polyester sleeping bags with limbs sticking out from everywhere that you couldn’t really tell whose was whose.

“Well I know an easy way.” Walking over to the pile of bags the group had brought with them, Mikasa crouches over a solid black bag with sleek lines. The girl’s got style, Jean notices. I mean, he noticed the moment she had walked into the house wearing a large, plain sweater that looked perfect with the shorts and black tights she wore on thin legs. And even Jean could appreciate a good pair of combat boots. Now in her pajamas, Mikasa looked just as intimidating yet softer from recently waking up.

She’s finally done rifling through her bag and is pulling out a phone when Jean realizes he’s been staring for way too long. Okay, so maybe he has a type. The intimidating, ‘could become or is some kind of threat if given the provocation’. It’d been the same with Thomas.

Scrolling through her phone, she seems to find what she’s looking for and gives Marco a small smile. Marco looks confused and terrified at what Mikasa’s got cooked up in that head of hers and braces for any sign of impact.

“Cover your ears.” He – as well as Jean – are given two seconds to react when the phone starts ringing at a frequency that could probably call over every dog in California and maybe even Nevada.

The reactions are pretty simultaneous.

Marco and Jean might not be the fastest people to react to a cue but the most they do is flinch from the loud ringing piercing through their fingers in their ears.

Eren, on the other hand, yells bloody murder and starts shouting about the alarms ringing and having “to kill them all”. Looking around the room, covering his ears, he realizes the need to murder concerns Mikasa’s serious face and just resorts to scowling in her direction.

Armin, the poor thing, wraps his head with the pillow and jacket he’d been using and slinks closer to Eren’s body to avoid the sound. Eren looks down at him and breaks the scowl for the tiniest smile before the scowl returns and he falls over Armin.

Sasha and Connie soon realize the safety from the cold the sleeping bags give doesn’t work as well with shrilly noises, they become rowdy and start throwing the covers off their bodies and stand to run and tackle at Mikasa.

Mikasa must’ve expected that to happen because as soon as their on their feet, Sasha takes a step and face plants back onto the floor while Connie is sidestepped, leaving him still running right into the wall.

“You’re going to make a hole in the walls and floor,” Mikasa amuses. She turns off the ringing and the room still shakes with the loud noise so early in the morning. The smell of the summer is coming through from the slightly open windows and the group takes this moment of solidarity as they pull themselves together and soak in the early morning light.

Eren’s the first to break the silence. “Well now that everyone’s basically awake – wait, why are we up so early? It’s like barely 7.”

Marco seems to blush but Mikasa interjects before he can throw himself under a sleep-driven bus. “We don’t have any food and I thought a trip to IHOP before we head to the library would be good. And I’m hungry and so is Marco so get up and we can leave.

“I like anything involving pancakes and hashbrowns,” Sasha says from the floor. She hasn’t moved much since taking the fall and the sleeping bags are still fairly tangled around her ankles but she has flipped over enough to show her tired, red eyes. Drunk young adults are probably the most entertaining thing a person could ever have to witness but the next-morning hangover could definitely rival for the top spot on that list.

Connie mumbles back from over by the wall he’s slumped against. “Hangover breakfast sounds wonderful.”

“Great,” Marco cheers. “What about you guys? Armin?”

Still curled into Eren’s side, Armin gives a small thumbs up in agreement and Eren just nods his head, still hanging off Armin’s body. The two could compete with how tangled Sasha and Connie just were three minutes ago.

“Well looks like we’ve got a plan,” Mikasa reiterates to everyone. They all hum in affirmation. “So let’s get packing up. I’m hungry.”

It takes a while for everyone to move towards work but soon they’ve cleaned the room up and Jean gets to watch from his perch near the hallway entrance. The mountains of trash have been stuffed into plastic bags that look ready to burst. Backpacks are roughly zipped back up with none of the order they seemed to have when they first arrived. Socks and shoes on as they make trips out back to take care of bathroom-type business and they turn to the bottle of mouthwash Marco brought to take care of nasty beer-scented morning breath.

Giving the room a once over and a pat on a still sleepy Armin’s back, Mikasa says, “looks good. I guess we can head out now. You guys ready?”

They all look at each other and their eyes show they remember the events from the night before. None of them know where to look so a majority glance at the small coffee table they’d used last night. Marco looks towards the steps of the stairs.

Exactly where Jean’s sat, waiting for their inevitable departure.

Jean’s breathe hitches. Marco’s eyes, searching yet somehow knowing he’s found what he’s looking for.

“I guess we’ll see you later, Jean,” he says.

“Yeah. See you soon ghost boy,” Eren chimes in after him. He slaps a hand on his shoulder and is the first to lead the group out of the house. Everyone follows, smiling a little in the general direction of the stairway down the hallway.

None of them know Jean’s down there but they know he’s watching. They trust Marco enough to know he won’t make them look stupid.

_“See you later.”_

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so finals are upon us, well at least for me. Studying is happening and it's so damn draining. I'm sorry if the next chapter comes later than 2 weeks but finals end on the 18th so give me time to chill and gather everything to make the next chapter good. Because oh do I have things planned for it.
> 
> Please give kudos, bookmark it, share the fic and leave a comment. It all really means a lot and I like to come here and read the comments to keep motivation to write on the high. The story has high goals and a high demand makes me so excited
> 
> Thank you to those have been supporting me thus far and I hope you keep coming back until the end. [ideas for a sequel float in the back of my mind all the time]
> 
> track the tag for updates [fic: locked](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-locked/)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	6. Halo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast is a good way to start the day...I think. But what's up with creaky houses and weird letters on the floor of bedrooms? Also Levi, you little shit!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!
> 
> Half the chapter is in Marco's perspective so please stay with me while I try to get his character's inner monologue down
> 
> ENJOY!

“Hey Marco, what’re you going to get?” Eren’s voice fazes through Marco’s ear.

He’d been lost in thought about last night’s events and the promise he vaguely remembers making to Jean. He’d ben half asleep at the time but Marco remembers the cold air suddenly getting warm as if something was there stopping it from blowing into his face. The room was still dark which meant the sun hadn’t risen yet but he hadn’t felt an actual body close enough to him to warrant the change in temperature.

So he assumed it could be the one other thing in the room that couldn’t be classified as a body technically.

Jean must’ve noticed Marco shivering during the night and had enlisted to sitting in front of the fireplace to help block the cold coming from the chimney. Sleeping there wasn’t one of Marco’s grandest of ideas. He might be a senior at Trost University, but that didn’t mean he was majoring in ‘Everyday Life Skills’. Being a Nursing student was draining enough. He could tell you the tools needed burning a Code Blue on the prenatal floor but lord have mercy if he ever needs to build himself a fire. And of course what comes with being a nurse in training, is the constant trial and error process of making the right decisions on your feet and ensuring nothing bad will happen to anyone on the floor. And with sleep still in his eyes and the dreamy fog of dancing beer bottles still on his mind, Marco might’ve started tipping towards error.

This promise is huge. He’d vowed to find a way to help Jean out of death’s hands for crying out loud. How the hell is a panicky nursing student supposed to grab onto a spirit’s hand and pull him from something so much bigger than anything he’s ever heard of.

Marco’s heard the stories of the house and the mythology that comes with their little town from his parents and what’s to say everything he’s known was all froufrou fluff made up to hide worse. This could go horribly wrong but something won’t let him stop.

He needs to know why those nights, years ago, happened. Why did he always have nightmares about a ghost he’d never heard of would take him away from his parents every night. He remembers those months on end of searching at the library to find any scary stories that described what he remembers but nothing ever came up.

Going to that house last night had done it for him. This was the place those nightmares happened. Those episodes of six year old Marco running up stairs, slick with blood – someone else’s blood – trying to escape a monster, only to be crushed and woken up sweating through his clothes and onto his bed sheets. And now he needed to find out why that house could bring back those horrible nightmares from the back of him mind yet comfort him all the same.

“Marco. You there or not, bruh? We need to order before mug-face waitress gets mad,” a whisper comes from across the table. Looking up, Marco sees it’s Connie who’s stuck his face across the scattered menus and sugar packets with a look of vague concern underneath the glint of an empty stomach waiting for food. He turns his head to the girl standing by the tables they’re group had brought together to fit everyone. She’s tall and thin with freckles over a face that looks ready to kill anyone who messes with their day. But Marco knows she won’t hurt a fly. Not with her girlfriend watching from across the room.

“Hey sis.” Marco says.

She sucks her teeth in annoyance. “You need to stop calling me that in public. I’m at work, just call me Ymir for fucks sake.”

“Says the girl cursing on the job,” Eren murmurs to Armin. Armin gives a slight chuckle which earns an even harder kick from Ymir under the table. “Ow! Okay sorry. My bad sheesh.”

“Marco just order already. I’m so hungryy!” Sasha whines. Marco chuckles at his friends and turns back to Ymir who’s still standing with her notepad and pen waiting for the next annoying comment. He notices Ymir’s girlfriend, Christa, smirking as she walks pass the table and bumps her hip into Ymir’s. She blushes a bit at the contact but quickly covers it while the people at the table are distracted by Connie and Sasha’s arguing over whether sausages over pancakes is considered a sandwich item. Ymir notices Marco watching the entire exchange and scowls in his direction. He smiles at her.

Ymir has always been a delightful person to be related to. When she’d moved out to attend college with Marco, living in the dorms didn’t seem as horrible considering her roommate. The sarcasm and bite in her comments was something he was used to and being able to see a hardened character fall for the cutest girl that attends the university with them was a treat and he was proud of her. She’d opened herself up for someone, something Marco never thought would happen when it came to his sister.

She also made coming out to their parents a whole lot easier. Having the younger sister show up one day and proclaim her love affair for Christa in the middle of dinner was an event and the hard look she’d given Marco after she was finished made it difficult to keep his own situation hidden any longer. Thankfully their parents hadn’t imploded on the spot within the hour. They’d actually taken it really well.

“So freckles, you ready to order or what?” Ymir’s voice cuts through his thoughts. He glares at his sister and questions the validity of said freckles’ blood relationship. Someone so opposite of him was somehow related to him and he just couldn’t be real.

“You do realize you have the same number of freckles as me, right? Calling me freckles is kind of pointless. Also rude as hell. Mom would not be proud,” he responds, smirking into the open menu he’s skimming through.

She brushes off the comment and just smiles down at him. “Actually your freckled butt is way more horrifying so your argument is invalid, hun.”

Everyone at the table had apparently turned their attention back to the two and were now laughing at Marco’s embarrassed, red face. Using the menu, he covers his face for a second to cool off his cheeks and then slams the sticky, plastic covered paper and shoots a mean mug at his baby sister.

“YMIR! Just get me the usual breakfast plate, please.” She chuckles to herself, writing down the order and walking back with a stack of menus towards the kitchen as Marco goes back to covering his face with his hands now that he’s left empty handed by a freckled thief.

“What’s got you so on edge, Marco?” Armin quietly asks. He’d only given a little chuckle at Ymir and Marco’s actions but the quiet mood the guy gives off comes just as quick. Armin was never one to make a scene. He’s only known him for four years but he could see just as much that Armin’s probably the only one who would remain calm if an apocalypse were to happen and we all got turned into radioactive zombies.

“Nothing. I just didn’t sleep well on that floor.” He notices the looks everyone shoots him from the corner of his eyes as he stares down at his palms. Marco knows they all think he’s crazy for going on this odd research adventure. And now he just has to wait for that last voice of uncertainty to have the group dynamic crash down onto his shoulders leaving him to finish what he’s promised.

Eren’s the first one to talk. “Marco, bro, we told you we’re in.” Marco’s head shoots up and he stares across the table at him. Eren smiles back and looks around the table. Marco follows his gaze and sees everyone nod their head.

“Yeah, Marco,” Sasha says, hands busy playing with the little packets of sugar left on the table. “Jean sounds cool and maybe we can help him. Least we could do since we probably woke him up from years of slumber or whatever.”

“Totes!” Connie mumbles offhandedly around his makeshift utensil-mustache. Marco was just about to comment about his worries on their support during this. That is until the entirety of Connie’s mustache collapses and lands on the table with a clatter that turns heads around the restaurant. The loud ringing makes everybody flinch and Eren pitches a sugar packet he was fiddling with at Connie’s eye while Marco and Armin give their normal ‘sorry my friends are obnoxious and loud’ looks they’re so accustomed to giving. Especially when it comes to eating at Scouting Legion.

When Marco had moved to Trost from Maria to enroll in the nursing program, the first most important thing he’d been told at orientation was to try the burgers at Scouting Legion. Apparently they tasted like gold wrapped around diamonds if any of those things were edible. And topped with a halo for effect. Of course, Marco had to check it out. So dragging Eren with him, they’d made that fateful stop to the burger place near the local high school and changed their lives forever.

I mean yeah the burgers were great but they also met Armin, Connie and Sasha there, so plus-plus for Team EreMarco…. Um.

Team EreMarco being the fact that the two of them had been best friends and basically brothers since they were kindergarteners of course. Nothing else. They’d grown up together and when Marco had decided to come out to Trost to attend school, Eren was down on the first beat to look for the three bedroom apartment near campus. Not like they could ever get rid of Eren’s adopted sister, Mikasa. And then all that was left was the transfer from the clothing store he worked at in Maria to one here in Trost and Eren was packed before their last semester of high school had even ended. It’d all happened so fast but Marco knew for some reason that Eren could never be away for too long. They were attached at the hip for so long and leaving the other half of a set piece felt wrong to not only them but everyone they knew.

When Armin showed up, things had changed a bit, yeah. Eren was still Marco’s best friend, but now his other hip had other things to get attached to. Other newer hobbies and interests. College changes people. Even for people not even attending yet considering Eren refused to go straight into another 4 years of school without taking a gap year to work for his tuition. The independent idiot had refused to take money from the family savings he and Mikasa had gotten when her supposed biological parents had passed away during sophomore year and now he believed in making some kind of contribution to the place they had. So rent money it was. Rent money that mostly turned into ‘more food money because our new friends Sasha and Connie are actually vacuum cleaners that have a large carrying capacity.’

Ever since the gang had met that night at the restaurant, the Scouting Legion had become their go-to spot to hang out. It’d been this way for four years now and no way were they about to finally get thrown out for their more liberal members’ actions.

With Armin trying to bring back order to all of the utensils on the table while Mikasa spoke to Eren about her plans on what they should do to start researching and the terrible twosome getting more and more restless without food and a still throbbing headache from Sasha, Marco is able to finally look around the place.

There weren’t many people up so early on a Saturday, midsummer, but the few that were here consisted largely of the employees with a couple straggling senior citizens and a few students chugging down coffee over textbooks from summer sessions at Trost. The oldies were all paired and seemed to be enjoying themselves from what Marco could tell. It resembled a date night just with pancakes and sausage and actual sunlight.

The employees were a treat to see running around as well. Today’s staff included Ymir and Christa, obviously. From the small flits of back hair running from the kitchen to the counter and back towards the office, Marco assumed the shorter manager was on the floor today. He couldn’t remember his name but the stories Ymir told him on those days when she’d come to visit and have dinner nights with the crew, the guy seemed terrifying and Marco appreciated the distance of not even knowing his name. He doubts the scary guy with the beady eyes would treat him nicely if he found out he’s related to Ymir.

The cooks in the back and pretty quiet considering they’re not usually ever. They’re names were along the lines of Erd and Gunther and from the parties Marco’s been to when they’d show up, they were the obnoxious yet sweet kind.

Last on the list of friends Marco’s friends solely from the restaurant included Petra from the front counter. She was a real beauty. Marco remembers that first night of eating at the restaurant and the sheer force that girl had hit her with. It was almost like the Scouting Legion itself was full of some weird energy that could keep away anything horrible in the world. It was a sanctuary and Marco doubts it has nothing to do with Petra. But as fate would have, she was apparently dating the hardass manager that can even terrify Ymir on off days.

Speaking of scary managers, as Marco looks back towards the kitchen he sees the guy making his way towards their table. This is it. They’re dead. He’d finally had enough and was going to kill Connie and Sasha for always acting like a couple of hungry 4 year olds. The look in his eyes could set a man on fire and make him pee himself if he was ever guilty of messing with the guy.

Eren suddenly shoots his head in front of Marco’s who’s been watching the manager walk towards them. “Hey, Levi! I didn’t know you were working today.”

Levi seems to just notice the group of them sitting at the table and Marco starts to reconsider what exactly was in his eyes when he’d first left the backroom and started walking towards them. He seemed distraught but seeing Eren waving him over he noticeably relaxes a bit.

“Well if it isn’t the fuckhead and his crew,” he comments, walking towards them. Marco slides down his seat a bit from being so close in proximity to the guy of many scary stories. Connie and Sasha are laughing as Eren turns a shade of red and retracts his arm as fast as snapping a rubber band. Marco turns his head and finds Mikasa’s driest look glaring back at Levi while he doesn’t seem to care a bit. Armin on the hand. It was easy to see that he was uncomfortable with something. He’d slid a bit away from Eren at some point.

“I’m not a fuckhead,” Eren whispers to himself. He earns himself an even bigger laugh from Sasha and Connie. Levi stands over the table, looking down at us, ready to bolt once he’s bored enough. “I just wanted to say hi.”

Levi smirks at us and responds with a prompt “hi” and continues on his way out the doors behind their table. Eren stares after him until he’s in his car and driving off.

“Okay…. What the heck was that?” Connie asks.

Eren turns back to the table and notices everyone’s eyes are on him, waiting for him to explain himself. “I just – I met him the other day at the uh-this event I went to and just wanted to say hi.”

“An event?” Sasha deadpans.

“Why does it sound like you met the guy at some kind of demonic gay club or something?” Connie asks.

“It- it wasn’t demonic, per say,” he mutters to the table. “Maybe a little bit shady….”

“Oh my god.” Sasha leans across the table into Eren’s face to whisper, “did you fuck the short stuff?”

Marco looks over at Armin and sees he’s playing with the sugar packets Eren had left out from before, seemingly uninterested. Dammit, Eren.

“I didn’t fuck him you guys. I just drank a bit with him sitting next to me and he might’ve accepted a couple rounds of shots. All friendly stuff, I swear. So shut up about it.”

“Eren relax,” Mikasa says, catching everyone’s attention. “Going to a gay club kind of warrants the question seeing as you never told us about this little trip in the first place.”

“Yeah when did you even go out to this club?” Marco asks. He doesn’t remember Eren ever telling them he was going out or that he was even the type to go to a club. “Looks like someone just got caught sneaking out of the house,” Marco laughs.

Eren scowls but the slight pink tinge to his face remains as he distracts himself with the sugar packets Armin has left alone now. They seem to unconsciously trade off in the little habit and Marco knows everyone at the table has noticed it at this point now too. Armin isn’t happy and Eren’s mood has been hit off kilter.

Connie’s voice buzzes in, trying to defuse the weird tension building but is caught off with Ymir showing up with their food.

They all continue their slight silence as she passes everyone their respective meals. If Ymir noticed the change in mood from Eren and Armin’s side of the table, she chooses to ignore it and butts into the joke Connie was trying to tell anyone who would listen.

As they all begin to eat, Sasha digging head first into mixing together everything on her plate to make a giant pancake burrito, Mikasa changes the topic back to the day’s plans.

“So I think we should do as much research as we can for the next week or so and then next Saturday, if we’re all free, we can go back and talk to Jean about what we find out and compare it to what he knows. What do you guys think?”

A week is a long time, Marco thinks. Hopefully Jean doesn’t think they’ve forgotten about him.

Armin finally speaks after what feels like ages. “Sounds like a good idea. It’ll give us time to take care of work and get some separate research done and then be able to come back and converge our own notes before we take them to Jean. We can all find something about the town or about different types of myths that involve whatever Jean’s situation sounds like. It’ll definitely make understanding some of this a lot easier.”

“I agree,” Marco says. He nods his head, staring down at his hash browns and sausages. “I just hope Jean doesn’t think we’re leaving him or something.”

The clatter of those familiar utensils seem to pause and Marco looks up. They’re all in various stages of looking at their meals, smiling. Sasha finally looks up and shoots a toothy grin, complete with bits of spinach omelet in her teeth. “I’m sure Jean will love us when we show up though.”

“Yeah Marco,” Eren says. “He probably understands that this isn’t something that can be done in a day. He’ll be there when we go back next Saturday.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I don’t know why I was worrying so much?”

“Marco, it’s fine,” Mikasa says. “You’re like my other brother and I’m sure everyone agrees that we’re behind you with whatever you do.”

“I know. But I feel like you guys just tag along and agree with everything I do. I just feel bad sometimes.”

“Don’t be silly,” Connie says through a bite of bacon. “This is probably the most fun any of us are going to have this semester. Maybe even this year if Jean’s situation becomes intense enough.”

Marco gives the smallest nod, silently in awe at how willing his friends are being. They could’ve easily called bullshit and left Marco at the house the moment he’d said he could see Jean standing behind Mikasa. But instead they were sticking by his side. And lord was he thankful for them.

 

XXXXX

 

It started getting lonely within two minutes after they’d left. After Marco had left.

Jean was left by himself.

But they’d promised to come back. He had promised to come back and help him figure out what this was.

Marco would come back.

 _“God it’s cold. When did Marco say they were even coming back?”_ he asks himself. He’s starting to get antsy. Waiting something to come happen was never a strong suit and if he wasn’t already dead, the stress could probably kill him.

Until then, he needed to remember as much as he could so he could be of some more use.

He shuffles through the memories from probably the longest night he’s ever had and tries to find and make the connections between what he’s seen tonight. There’d been so much; it was all overwhelming. The most promising of memories being that archway.

The letters on the floor upstairs.

When Jean had first arrived at the house with those three people he vaguely remembers, they’d all decided to take a tour of the place after Jean had suggested scoping out the place for murderers or homeless people that could kill him during the night. The taller one had automatically started sweating up a bigger storm than there already was while the other two – Reiner and the girl – had agreed after sharing a small look that wouldn’t have been noticeable if Jean hadn’t had turned right then. They were starting to really freak Jean out and the paranoia just made him more content on raiding the rooms for evil demons and serial killers. So he led the way up the stairs after checking the ground floor for anything unusual.

The rooms upstairs had seemed all clean. Not much to distinguish it as a haunted house from another abandoned property. The place was filthy and the vague stench of soot mixed with kerosene was overpowering. So the rumors of people attempting to burn down of the place was true.

When Jean was younger, he remembers hearing about the disaster at the house and how it has created such a big storm in the news. Media from all around the state were in Trost, trying to find any inside knowledge on the cursed blowout that killed two and left the house completely intact. Apparently some kids had decided they’d had enough of rumors and dares involving the so-called haunted house so a group of freshmen from the high school had decided to end the torment. Grabbing the supplies to burn the place down, they’d made their way down to the house in the woods. The group had gotten as far as dousing a couple rooms inside with kerosene until the production was halted.

Stories say that there was a scream from one of the girls that had died that night and when the others had gone to investigate, all they’d found was their bodies burnt to a crisp. They’d said the smell was the worst and it was obvious gallons of the kerosene were involved and it couldn’t have been just an accident. After interviews and investigations for months, the police had decided that it was more than likely an accident. So then the next story became the theory that the two were under the stairs when someone had tipped a gallon of the stuff over and drenched them in kerosene. The cause of fire could have been from the electrical appliances sparking up on contact to the wet liquid.

Walking through the house with the other three, there was a deep understanding to why those kids had done what they’d done. This place was creepy as fuck.

Going into the master bedroom, Jean had expected nothing out of the ordinary. The bathroom was empty and so was the closet. The only thing out of place were the papers strewn about. He remembers finding them all confusing to read as they seemed to be in a different language. A language where squiggles and dashes could make up an entire language.

He’d asked the three standing huddled in the doorway if they understood anything written on the pages and the beat where no one said a word, held their breath, and tensed up should have warned Jean more of the implications on sleeping at that house. But the appeal of staying had only risen. This place intrigued him. Its own will to stand through everything that’s happened in it was interesting.

So he’d dropped the papers and followed the three out and down the stairs back to the living room.

Now, by himself, still in that very same living room, Jean can see just how wrong he was. This place wasn’t interesting. It was killing him. Ruining his life. No amount of voodoo magic with demons and whatsits could ever amount to how fucked up Jean felt.

But he’d find out what the hell was happening and any kind of information he could dig up even if it’d ruin him forever.

Deciding the best way to start is checking out those papers strewn across the floor upstairs, Jean starts the trek. It’s been a while since he’s been up there. Specifically that room. About fifteen years worth of time has passed.

Walking past the end table on the landing in the hallway was difficult enough and for a second Jean could feel himself clench up and his throat close up. Deep breaths. All he need were deep breaths and he’d be past it like he always does.

Getting up to the second floor, Jean turns down the hallway towards the far door. The summer heat outside has been bearing down on the house for a while even through the tree coverage from the forest. Walking through the hall, he can feel how hot it is and the nerves settle into him more as the room starts to feel sticky and unwelcoming in general.

 _“I know this is probably a bad idea,”_ he says towards the door. There’s probably (hopefully) no one on the other side to hear him but he does it anyway. _“I just need to find out more. I need to figure this out.”_

Reaching forward, his hand lands on the doorknob. It takes a couple of shaky breaths until he gets the heart to turn it.

The room looks the same as he’d left it years ago. Papers still strewn about the floor; dust bunnies under the furniture growing to terrifying measures that would give Levi a heart attack.

Levi was one of them in all of this. Jean still hasn’t seen the man or at least doesn’t remember meeting him on the other side. Maybe finding the meaning behind these letters could help break the barriers. Find out anything about what happens at the mansion in Utgard.

Kneeling to the floor in the middle of the room, Jean starts collecting the papers around him. The squiggles of the page are still the same; unreadable and confusing as hell. It could take months of staring at the one piece of paper in his hands to decipher any kind of meaning.

Glancing from paper to paper his vision starts to falter. The edges blur as the lines on the page shake and swish into more discernable letters.

_“What the fuck….”_

Looking down, closer, at the page in his hands he can make out a couple words

                Identification Name: Jaeger, Eren

                NO.: 6574005

                Cause: Suffocation

                Destination: Master

Jean’s eyes focus back in and the words start to shift back into those incomprehensible lines.

_“Jaeger? What the actual fuck? Who the hell is Jaeger, Ere-“_

Eren. Eren was the guy Marco was hanging onto last night. Did he even hear them mention a last name? Why would his name be in these pages on the floor of an abandoned house from decades ago?

Grabbing other pages, Jean tries to get back to that state of mind to make out any other names he could recognize. He needed to know what these papers meant and he’d stay up here until he could.

Settling onto the floor, surrounded by pages on pages, Jean doesn’t discern the creaking from the house settling from the door creaking.

The faint click of the bolts locking goes unheard and unnoticed as Jean falls deeper into the papers.

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday and winter break. This chapter isn't much but it is a different character perspective so that was fun to try. I have the actual library fun stuff planned for the next two chapters so look out for those hopefully before the new year. I'm also starting the process of grounding out a semi EreJeanMarco fic (there might be losers who find a merpeople island idk) so pray for me and check for links to that as well after this year ends. I also have oneshots on my main page but I've only gotten one crap one done so don't do the thing for that but my new year's resolution is to write more so hey, you never know.
> 
> Please comment and leave kudos and share the fic. It helps a lot.
> 
> Tell me what you think is in the papers. Or your theory on what Eren has to do with anything. Predictions for anything?
> 
> use the tag [fic: locked](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-locked/) for updates
> 
> I have a tumblr: [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	7. Resting Bitchface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get dealt with and talked over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (early) New Year!

 

It takes them about an hour of varied silence until they’ve finished eating. The tension had been dissipating rather slowly but with the occasional joke from Sasha and Connie, there wasn’t much room for awkward moments.

During the time it took for everyone to stuff their faces, not much had happened in the restaurant. Marco had noticed the manager, Levi, coming back after half an hour. Eren had stayed looking down at his plate as Levi had passed. Everyone’s faces seemed uncertain on whether to greet the man but Marco had given a small wave as a peace offering of sorts. He hadn’t expected the worst from just a simple wave and nod of the head.  

The look Marco received in return was far worse than the look from earlier.

It’s a piercing glare like he knows something stupid that Marco’s done. Like he knows something worthy enough to break through that harsh expression Marco usually saw on his face.

He walks past Marco and the others without looking back but the feeling of eyes staying on him remains long after they’ve finished eating and are waiting to pay the bill.

Ymir comes by with the receipts, not so much in the talking mood, and Marco feels the urgency to leave the restaurant before something big happens. The vibes are just all wrong and he feels he shouldn’t be at this place. Marco doesn’t know what’s brought on this sudden change but maybe leaving and heading to the library would do him some good.

This couldn’t have anything to do Jean, of course. Looking around at everyone, checking their phones for messages and on social media, Marco feels even more disconnected to it all.

“We should get going,” Mikasa says quietly. The tension around the table seems to snap and everyone starts getting up and gathering their coats and cell phones. They all shuffle out the door towards the two cars they’d fit into. Mikasa heads over with Connie and Sasha to make sure they don’t drive off to another food place before getting to the library, leaving Eren and Armin with Marco’s car. As soon as they’re all buckled in Eren seems to explode from lack of oxygen and starts rambling off to himself in the passenger seat.

Usually Marco’s used to Eren when he’s in one of his moods and talking to himself while he drives, but now the circumstances are a bit more concerning and he makes an attempt to calm the boy down.

“Eren. You okay over there?” he asks.

Eren lets out a small grunt in response and continues staring out the window, his eyebrows furrowed, and a scowl etched permanently onto his face.

Marco look into the rearview mirror at Armin, trying to see if he knows what could make Eren less upset about whatever it was but he finds himself looking back at a boy who looks just as upset as Eren and now he’s even more exasperated. He huffs into the steering wheel as they saddle up to a red light.

Marco looks over at the two of them, refusing to talk to each other, and tries to think of something to diffuse the air.

“Hey Eren remember that game we used to play in the car on our way to school in the mornings? We used to hate being up so early but dad would always get us excited by playing. Armin you might even know the game,” he says. Looking from one to the other and seeing no response from either, Marco continues talking, tapping on the steering wheel in anxiety at this point.

“What did he always do? Oh right! I Spy basically but with shapes or riddles. It was always the best especially when we used to get into arguments and he needed us to suck it the fuck up and become best friends again. Remember that Eren?!”

That seems to grab the duos attention as they snap out and stare at Marco, in wonder at the fact that Marco usually never curses unless it was something big. Marco’s gripping the steering wheel, trying to calm down his emotions and keep his concentration on the road. There isn’t much traffic but with kids walking around in large obnoxious groups during their summer vacation, anything could happen real quick.

“Glad you guys realize you’re being a bunch of babies,” Marco says, thoroughly irritated by their silence. They still haven’t said a word. Those idiots. “Now the both of you better speak up about anything in the next 2 minutes or I’m pulling over to the side and holding an even bigger intervention that’ll be way more awkward then chatting about the weather.”

Turning back to face the light, Marco slowly pulls the car forward, anticipation for something from them in his hands. He doesn’t want to hold a damn intervention but if an intervention is what it will take for them to talk and tell each other how they feel then an intervention is what there will be. Crush or not, Eren needed to get his shit together and make friends with people he needs to keep in his life.

“Fine,” Armin says. “So how did you and Levi end up at the club?”

“Really?! That’s what you want to talk about?” Eren yells, turning around in his seat. The belt grabs onto his collarbone and pulls him back down thankfully, but the motion catches even Marco off guard making him slow down the car.

“Yeah,” he responds, quieter this time.

Eren seems to calm down a bit, watching Armin’s face for any kind of reaction. He sighs, turning back towards the road. “It doesn’t matter. It was stupid. I shouldn’t even be focusing on that when there’s better things.” He takes in a breath air and we assume he’s done talking and Armin and I turn back our focus to other things happening outside the car.

“I’m sorry.”

We all snap our heads. Bitter-boy Eren never usually apologizes so fully. The amount of times he’s turned the conversation around to avoid being obvious about apologizing could put a man to shame.

Trying to play it cool and not making it known that they’re surprised, Marco continues the conversation. “And what are you sorry for?”

“God Marco. We’re not fucking five years old. I don’t have to explain every single one of my damn intentions. You know very well what I’m apologizing about and I’m over it. What happened, happened; and, I’m done.”

Marco sighs again. “I guess that works as well. Armin?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. We should probably hurry up. Mikasa and the other will be waiting.”

“Okay,” Marco says. He looks back at the both of them and goes back to focusing on getting to the library.

 

XXXXX

 

When they all arrive at the library, both cars parked next to each other, there’s a lighter mood to the group. The library seems emptier than usual considering it was still summer vacation and the warm sun beating down onto the pavement wasn’t as harsh as it could be during late-June. Everyone would be out, driving down to the coast or up in the mountains camping. Trying to soak in the good weather as long as possible until school started back up. The town isn’t known for its more traditional architecture but its quaintness is shown full force by the residents. People of all ages, generations of families, have lived and grown up here. They know its culture and traditions but as travelers trying to create a space for themselves in such a closed town wasn’t difficult. The people were accepting and Marco was truly grateful that he had managed to bring two of the most important people to him to such a nice place.

Even if there was a supposed haunted house with a said ‘history’ of missing people.

Making their way into the library they all congregate towards the front desk. The place isn’t as big as the campus library with its four floors but thru Trost Library could rival it with its two stories of books and novels and years of history. The room opens up to an entire floor of books with an open floor leading down to the lower level where more books were held. And with architecture that matched the town’s colonial yet simplistic style, the place felt like home.

Years of coming to the library to escape the loud crowds in the library on campus, Marco’s comfortable in being the one to ask the questions for what they’re looking for.

“Hey Annie. Where’s the Reiner and Bert?”

She looks up for just a second, shooting a glance at everyone surrounding Marco in front of her. “They’re around. Probably fucking around while shelving books. Did you need something?” she asks, slightly disinterested. It wasn’t like she truly didn’t care but the way she carried herself and spoke could throw off anyone in thinking Annie didn’t care for anything. Marco smiles as he remembers when Reiner had told him about how she barely cares to even follow the uniform policy because of her refusal to not wear shorts and hoodies on the daily. It was endearing if you knew her well enough. She was just misunderstood for her stone-like expressions. Resting bitchface.

“Actually yeah. We needed to find anything you’ve got about the history of this town. I only know a little bit but specifically about that haunted house place if there’s anything. Like maybe news articles or just a general town history could do.” He looks at her eagerly, waiting for any sign that there could be something to look at and it won’t be like stealing the Declaration of Independence to get the information.

Annie finally looks back up at Marco from the computer she’d been scanning and cataloging books with. Definitely resting bitchface. She seems to stare into him, looking for what Marco’s intentions could be and hopefully he doesn’t look as guilty as he feels with those eyes searching almost into his damn soul.

The same eyes he remembers getting from Levi. A chill runs through his body from the memory and he diverts his eyes to the stack of books left on the counter to be sorted. There’s a lot of them and he wonders where the other two, Reiner and Bert, could be leaving Annie to sorting everything out. The three of them were never too far away from each other and it hadn’t surprised Marco one bit when he found out his favorite librarians had been friends for years before finding work at the library.

As if on cue, the two turn the corner looking rather disheveled for people supposedly shelving books.

“Oh god please tell me you two weren’t fucking in the backroom?” Eren says a little louder than probably appropriate for a kid-friendly environment.

“It’s not fucking,” Reiner comments. “That’s just vulgar language, Jaeger. I prefer making love.”

Bertholdt seems to blow a gasket and starts sweating like crazy from what Reiner’s said. The two are complete opposites of character and although it surprises Marco and everyone else how well they are together, it warrants the question on how the two even met and remained friends long enough for the relationship to bloom.

“Anyway,” Armin cuts in. “We were hoping if any of you could help us find information about the town’s history. Anything would really help but if there’s something on the haunted house up in the woods, it’d be the best.”

The three librarians look at one another until Reiner finally asks, “Why are you guys so interested in the house? It’s just some run down old place people tell stories about. There’s not much to it.”

“We have our reasons,” Mikasa says. “So do you guys have anything or do we need to move onto the next available resource?”

Mikasa was always sharp-mouthed but Marco feels the hostility between the looks she’s giving to Annie and receiving back as a bit excessive. Tense moments of staring and not a peep from anyone around them and finally Annie seems to give in.

“We might have something in the back but if you want to wait, you’ll find some stuff in the history section. There’s an area downstairs in the back corner with articles about the town’s history if you really want to dig through those.”

“That sounds perfect,” Mikasa says. She pivots on her heels and marches towards the stairs that lead to the far end of the library. Sasha and Connie are slow on their heels followed closely by a wary Eren, leaving Marco and Armin with the others.

“Uh. Thanks Annie. Sorry about Mika-“

“Your friends an asshole,” Annie interrupts. Reiner and Bertoldt seem to sense their not needed any longer and start shuffling away until she turns quickly to address them. “Since you’re going back there, can you guys looks around for those special articles about the house. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

The two nod their head in understanding and make their way to the backroom.

“Ackerman’s an asshole,” she says directed more towards Marco and Armin. She turns to face them again, eyes still as closed off as ever. “But I know good gusto when I see it. I’ll make sure those dickheads don’t get lost in each other’s assed and bring whatever we find to you guys.”

“Thanks Annie,” Armin says. She doesn’t seem interested anymore and just returns a slight shrug in response and goes back to scanning barcodes.

The both of them make their way towards the back of the building, trying to find where the rest of their group decided to congregate. Somewhere lost in between the science fiction section Armin stops walking. Marco turns back to see what’s up and to get him to move on but he sees the look on Armin’s face and shuts his mouth.

Armin takes the opportunity to say what’s on his mind and it’s way more unexpected than Marco thought. “I know you like him. I’ve known since you guys basically moved here and invited us to your place that first week. But I’m not going to stop. Eren gets to choose which means I could still have a chance and I’m not giving that up so if that bothers you then I’m sorry but-“

Marco cuts him off before he can say anything else by squeezing him close to his chest in a hug. Armin immediately tenses up in his arms but then relaxes when he realizes Marco isn’t about to throw him to the ground. “You’re an idiot. Probably the most intelligent idiot I will ever have the pleasure of meeting.” He lets go of his hold on Armin but keeps him within arms’ reach. “Yeah I like Eren. But I’m working on years of saddling right next to him and getting used to this new life out here. Where there’s more than just an angry boy to look at and admire. But I’m happy you came to me about this and didn’t let it stew inside of you. And I’m sure when Eren realizes he’s had the best right next to him, no one’s going to be surprised when you two end up skipping out on singles night.”

Armin looks down between them, staring at their shoelaces. A small blush rises to his cheeks as he smiles just a little.

“Plus Eren’s like a brother to me,” Marco continues. “And I’d much rather have an actual bookworm for a brother-in-law than the angry man from the restaurant with the scary eyes. I think Mikasa and even Eren agrees the dude is probably not worth it.”

At that, Armin’s cheeks turn even rosier and he nudges Marco in the side and starts back to finding their friends in the large library. Marco notices a better pep in Armin’s step and he smiles to himself, hoping that maybe the growing rift between him and Eren could start ebbing away and they can go back to being best friends again.

He wanted to mention something else but the urge to leave Armin content outweighed the dread. Resigning him to wait for Eren to respond could be Marco leaving him hanging high and dry. Too much love is poison especially if that love isn’t returned to you and watching Armin crumble is something Marco never wants to see. For now, though, he’s content with letting their friendship filter through whatever troubles they seemed to be having. They could work it out themselves.

But acting like adults is hard.

Marco’s fully reminded of that as they turn the corner and find Sasha some book about Sesame Street from the children’s area and Connie playing around with one of those bead tables you’d find at the doctor’s office. Even Eren and Mikasa have elected to misting around the shelves, looking at the titles and pulling some out and showing the other books they remember from when they were little.

As Marco and Armin enter the area, Armin lets out a tiny cough, catching everyone’s attention.

“Oh finally,” Connie says, arranging all of the beads onto one side of the board. “We were dying of boredom waiting for you guys to hurry up.”

“Mhm,” Sasha responds, eyes not even lifting from the book. She turns the page and gets flustered at the page and turns it around to Connie the picture of Oscar the Grouch talking to Big Bird.

“Where were you guys?” Eren asks. His eyes glancing between Marco and Armin, searching for something.

“We were just asking Annie about any new books that’ve arrived. You know Armin. Always looking for another book to dissolve into. Couldn’t get him away,” Marco responds without any hesitation in his voice. Bringing up Annie’s opinion on Mikasa or the conversation he’d just had with Armin would not be at all appropriate for what they’ve come here to do. “We should go find those books I guess.”

Mikasa nods and leads the way out of the children’s section towards where the history books are kept. 

They all make it to the section of the library with all of the historical books on the town and the state itself. Everyone pulls down their own large encyclopedia sized monsters and get to flipping through pages. After about ten minutes of flipping, Annie appears with a box of scattered papers, most of which look scarred and unreadable or damaged from years of sitting in a box in the storage room.

“This is all we have. I’m not even entirely sure what’s in it but have fun I guess. Fair warning, though. Reiner, Bert and I have done our fair share of searching for an answer but we always get left with nothing new to go off of. But if you find anything, let us know.” With that she turns away and goes back towards the front of the building, leaving us staring at her retreating form. She seems to have shrunken in size since the last time Marco’s seen her fully stood up. It’s like watching a hurt animal curl into themselves and Marco wonders what changed her attitude during that time between then and now.

“Okay. What the fuck was that about?” Eren asks.

“She acted like she knew what we were here for,” Armin says. He turns towards the rest of the group huddled around the small table they’d used as a home base for all the documents. “How could she know that we’re here to solve some problem?”

“I told you she shouldn’t be trusted,” Mikasa speaks up. She’d been quiet and stiff the entire time Annie was around their group. Refusing to even let on at what page she was reading in her book. “There’s something up with the three of them.”

Connie fumbles with the box left on the table and says, “Well maybe this thing will help us figure out what it is they want to figure out and then we can all be friends and live happily ever after because I’m already tired of all the weird fighting going on for no reason.”

Mikasa shoots a glare at Connie but then quickly drops it and goes back to reading the book laid down in front of her.

It’s about an hour later of siphoning through pages on pages of incomprehensible jumbling of marks – that couldn’t even be called a language – when they decide to take a break. And by ‘take a break’ they mean call it a day and decide to take their separate ways to do their own research and prepare for the week.

Everyone has work the next day and even though it’s barely noon, lunch and a good rest at home isn’t as unappealing as staying cooped up in the library for the rest of their weekend. They each check out their own books and ask Annie to borrow the box of information for the week and get an uninterested grunt in response as affirmation.

Gathering into their cars, they make their way to a local fast food place that isn’t Scouting Legion. Somehow they’d all unconsciously decided that the restaurant didn’t need any more awkward moments in one day and it was best to put as much distance they could from it for now.

The entire meal Connie and Sasha told jokes; Mikasa and Armin threw theories back and forth on what could the history of the house be; while Marco and Eren ate in relative silence, listening to their friends. They hadn’t found much in their research, mostly just records on when the house was built – mid 1800s apparently – but what was surprising to see were all of the articles on missing students or tourists in search for an adventure. From what Annie had said, they hadn’t expected something as big as a murder mystery to arise from such a simple house. But apparently the old rumors were true and Annie had decided to gloss over obvious facts in search for the nitty gritty new information they might turn up.

But for now it looks like that would have to wait. Adults have to adult and unfortunately that meant working for a living most of the time.

And as they finish their meals, heading to the cars to hitch their rides back home, Marco is content in where he’s at. Friends that care and a decent home to come to was all he needed. But that nagging sensation was there, always on the back of his mind.

There could be more. He just had to look hard enough.

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that happened. 
> 
> I recently got indirect motivation from [AvoidingAvoidance](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com/) when they told me to keep writing and not be afraid to talk about it like I do with their amazing fics and idk man. So I decided to just go ahead and post this chapter now rather than wait. The next chapter will probably be out this weekend if everything goes well. The next few chapters I've planned should bring more detail to evil demon man and some more Eren backstory (kinda)
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos and all that fun stuff. 
> 
> Tell me what you think is Eren's deal. Or what you think the papers in the box Annie gave them could tell Marco. 
> 
> I have a tumblr: [Mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	8. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going back home when there's a feeling in your chest is rough.

It isn’t until a couple days in that Jean realizes he’s kind of stuck.

_“What the fuck?”_

Pulling harder on the doorknob, the molding starts to crack but still refuses to release the door. It feels as if the door itself is cemented into the trimming and it would take extra force from a sledgehammer to get it to let up. Every pull from Jean leads only to cracks building against the door and ceiling but nothing budges. After a few minutes of using more energy he’s utilized in the last two centuries, he gives up on trying.

Sliding down against the wood panel in defeat, he pulls his leg up to his chest. His fingers reach up to thread in his blond hair. The room is still scattered with papers and old notebooks he’d found under the bed.

The past couple of days had been Jean lying on the floor, surrounded by everything for hours of time, trying to pull forward any signs of coherent word. The house had remained quiet with just the few creaks and squeaks of the house settling every couple of hours that would give Jean a jump but other than that, Jean was drowned into the sound of paper crinkling and his insistent finger thrumming on the wood floor.

Sitting on the floor staring at the papers, Jean lets himself fall over onto his side in annoyance. He couldn’t find anything else in the papers apart from those few lines on some guy named Eren Jaeger. Who’s to even say that the Eren Jaeger even has anything to do with the Eren that is friends with Marco. None of it was making sense and the papers weren’t helping and the overwhelming feeling of being useless washed over him as it had many times before. Years of feeling useless in every situation didn’t make this any different. If he couldn’t decipher words that belonged to some other world while _being_ from that other world then what the hell was the point?

He sat up as the memory rushed all other thoughts away.

Marco was counting on him as well. He’d said he wanted to, was invested, in finding the answer. And god damn if Jean was going to give up so quickly when people were counting on him.

Dragging himself up off the ground, he meanders back over to the center of the room. Giving it the once over, he grabs a sheet from off the bed and sighs.

It’ll take a while to concentrate back into that mind space that helped him decipher the words involving Eren. But seeing as he had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, he sits back down onto the floor and stares down at the sheet trying to find something.

 

XXXXX

 

“Well that was kind of productive don’t you think?” Eren says as he walks into their apartment.

The three of them – Marco, Mikasa and Eren – had left the others and gone straight back home after dropping off Armin at his place. The car ide had been a quiet one with less casualties considering Mikasa was there continuously glaring out the window. Marco knew that if it weren’t for what had happened earlier that day, Armin would’ve been right there with them, walking inside and plopping down on the couch next to Eren. But instead he’d elected to just being dropped in front of his place near campus so he could get some last minute paperwork done for his internship at the admissions department. Marco hadn’t thought much about it but the look on Eren’s face as he stared forward through the glass showed how hurt he felt that his best friend wouldn’t come hang out for a while. It’s not like Armin lived that far anyway. Just a five minute walk the opposite direction of campus. But to each their own and he probably wanted to think about everything without the constant distraction Eren posed. The only words coming out of him having been that famous line engraved into Marco’s head ever since he was a child when his mother would read him stories about the house in the woods. “There’s a reason hurricanes are named after people.”

Now walking into their apartment with a box full of papers that appeared useless and no direction to go in their research and nothing other than research to do during the summer, Marco didn’t know what to feel.

“How about a movie night yeah?” he asks the two. Mikasa’s in the kitchen looking for something to drink while Eren lays on the couch flicking through a magazine that’d been laying on the floor. She closes the fridge, turning with a soda in her hand and leaning back against the counter as she takes a sip. If she wasn’t such a nerdy yet overprotective mother to Eren, Marco would’ve been afraid to ever cross her path. But years of dealing with her moods and strong personality it was easy to see she was waiting for someone else to reply before she gave her response.

Turning to Eren, eyebrows raised, Marco smiles at his best friend who’s staring at page knowing that everyone in the room knows he’s not reading a single line.

“I’m actually kind of tired. And besides, I have opening shift tomorrow and I don’t need to be late even if Hannes is on duty with me.” Hannes had been like Eren’s second parent since they’d moved down to Trost. With his own dad gone and a mother he rarely got to see even during the holidays, Eren sort of looked up to the train wreck Hannes was. Marco wouldn’t ever trust him with a pet goldfish but Eren knew how Hannes worked and if that worked for him, it was fine by Mikasa which meant we all had to live with surprise visits from the guy.

Getting up off the couch, Eren grabs a towel from their room and makes his way to the shower. Once the door closes it’s like the bubble pops and Mikasa can finally breathe. “I’m a little tired too Marco. Maybe some other time.” She lets out everything she’s been holding back and her shoulders relax just a bit as she silently makes her way across the room and shuts the door leaving Marco alone in the living room.

Marco huffs, taking a seat on the couch Eren had just been occupying. The space isn’t that large compared to his childhood home but it’s enough for just the three of them to live in. The apartment came with only two bedrooms but Marco was more than willing to share the larger master room with his best friend. It was currently a mess since Eren refused to do laundry during the summer when there was more time to be spent hanging out with Marco and the fact that it was the only space Marco had to keep his art supplies. His acrylics and brushes were laid across his unused desk while old textbooks lay flat on the floor to hold up his larger projects still drying.

Painting had become this unexpected hobby since moving out of the house. Usually Marco kept to doodling or sketching in notebooks and drawing pads. But once he’s moved out, the urge for bigger mediums and throwing color onto a canvas had won out and Marco had bought the basics kit to painting.

Most of what he’d painted included small objects or things that caught his eye on campus. So many dried canvases contained red, autumn trees and figures of people walking around. It wasn’t until the end of the semester when Eren had pointed it out that his paintings were starting to get a little bit… creepy.

It wasn’t bad. It’s just if you looked hard enough you could find in the shadows small little eyes of hidden demons in the corners staring back at you. The scenes of early mornings with people walking around turned beautiful pieces into horrifying images once taken in fully.  Marco could never remember when the figure would come out of his paintings but it had become enough reason to find why the little demon underneath the exterior of his paintings showed up.

He’d asked his mother if there was anything odd when he was younger and would draw or color in his books. She had mentioned that when he was little the worst that he’d ever drawn was of his old goldfish’s funeral so past history of creepy wasn’t a very reliable source to cite. Marco had gone back to painting and trying to find out how the image seemed to show up every time, but overthinking left him dozing off halfway through and once he’d come out of his paint-induced trance a long look would show you those same eyes looking back from the lines on the page.

Sitting on the couch by himself now, Marco figures the circumstances are perfect to make a call. He needs to know more about what this house is about and the idea that some demon is around this town solely to fuck with his paintings couldn’t be the truth.

There’s always more to the story.

Grabbing his phone, he dials the number he’s memorized by heart. Letting it ring. Holding his breathe afraid of an answer to his question he might receive that he wouldn’t expect. He’d always talk to them over Skype when he needed a voice to listen to or someone to tell his worries to but this was more than Marco could probably handle talking about over their shot internet connection.

His mother was prone to panicking over everything and making her uncomfortable is never what he intends.

The ringing on the other side stops and the strong voice of his mother sounds. “Hello? Marco, honey, is that you?”

“Hey mom. I was wondering if I could maybe come by this week for lunch or something?”

 

XXXXX

 

The drive back home only lasts three hours but having Eren and Mikasa makes it a lot better than if he were to make the journey alone. He’d asked them if they were interested and although their weeks were scheduled to work they’d always managed to get Wednesdays as their days off. And it was on Wednesday that they made the drive down to Maria to visit their parents.

It had been a while for Mikasa and Eren as well and it seemed a perfect idea to have everyone show up at Marco’s place to have a large lunch. Eren’s mother had promised to bring her special apple fritters and Eren was sold on the idea and spent most of the entire week until Wednesday talking highly about his mother’s desserts.

Until the promise of home-cooked meals was fulfilled, the three were left with shuffling through the box left on the floor of their tiny dining room. Although, Eren argued the space could be considered more of an eat-in kitchen than an actual dining room which earned him a smack on the head for disrespecting the place with the landlord still in the room showing us the place.

Most of the time researching included Marco sitting at the counter by himself since Eren had work at the store and Mikasa had her work at the local law office as a co-op intern. Although the others had tried to come in and attempt to look through the books, they usually either fell asleep from exhaustion or drowned themselves in coffee to stay awake and keep Marco – company which involved a lot of arguing from Marco to get them back into bed to keep them from getting sick. He wouldn’t have incapable roommates because of him.

The others had texted Marco every once in a while to let him know of their progress. Which was nothing.

None of the books told them anything other than the town’s small history and growth from the migration caused by the rise in gold mining which could have explained any California town already. It was flipping through books on books and pages that threatened to give paper cuts that kept Marco overwhelmed. Hours on trying to find anything from the books had brought out old habits and his roommates would find him on more than a couple occasions pulling on his short undercut at the nape of his neck.

“Hey, Marco, have you even taken a break at all today,” Eren’s voice comes from their room. He’s standing in his old high school sports shirt and track pants and Marco wonders how he’s always able to handle the summer heat.

He rubs his hands against his face and stares down at the page he’d been reading. The words had started to blur a bit an hour ago but Marco had wanted to finish off and get rid of the book before going to bed and now it seems he might’ve over done it with the long hours of reading. He could feel his brain turning to mush.

“Yeah,” he says. “Uh… what time is it?”

He can hear the smirk on Eren’s face before even seeing it. “It’s about 7 at night. The day is Tuesday and you smell like gross boy.”

“And that’s my cue to take a shower,” Marco says, smiling. Eren might be a pain to handle when he was in a mood but the guy took care of Marco even when he denied any help at all. And for that, Marco was always grateful. As he looked at him standing with his hands on his hips, Marco wondered what it was that had him thrown for a loop. Ever since the move, Eren had been taking more risks and throwing himself into either his work or whatever little thing he was doing at the time. Marco thought about the boy that he once spent hours playing in the sand with and how the same boy now lived across the room from him yet managed to be all the different.

Eren was different. He was different. Mikasa managed to still be the doting mother she always was but even she had changed. There were cracks forming in their relationship and finding something to fill in the holes was tiring and tedious when all it did was create pressure on everything.

“Are you done staring at me or are gonna just sit there and stink up the place until the second coming of Christ?” Eren laughs.

“Right no. I’m up, I’m up. No need to be snippy,” Marco says, laughing as well.

For now their friendship is fine just the way it is. Cracks and all.

 

XXXXX

 

Sitting in a car full of people he enjoys spending time with and pulling into the street that leads up to their houses, Marco starts getting excited for the day. They planned on only staying for lunch and making the drive back home that night because of work but he was intent on making the most of it. This meant leaving as early as they could get Eren out of bed and into the shower so they could ask Marco’s parents the questions that’d been on his mind for years. He needed to know anything about his parent’s experience in the house.

All he knew was that when they were seniors in high school, they’d spent the holiday night at the house and done a bit of investigating upstairs when something scared them, making them leave. They never told Marco what it was that happened in the room or what they saw that could scare them away enough to leave the town after graduating.

They both went to Trost high school and had moved out to Maria as soon as they’d married a few years after. Marco being born in Maria should mean that any connection to Trost should’ve been nonexistent, yet here he was. Some pull to the town to attend university and now a draw towards the house his parents had a history with.

Pulling into the driveway of his house with Mikasa and Eren in tow, Marco’s reminded just how much he’s missed being home. Their house was never the biggest or grandest but it was as quaint as single-story houses could be. Living in a relatively normal neighborhood with normal-esqe neighbors came along with keeping up the normal appearance. The hedges and lawn were kept in top condition (something his dad made a point of doing every other weekend since Marco could remember). And the garden near the entryway still held the flowers mother always raved about maintaining over Skype since her children had moved out. Everything was a picture perfect image and Marco was ever the more doubtful about how normal his parents actually led on to believe.

Dragging himself out of the car, Eren is the first to say anything in his usual half-asleep, semi-nauseous-after-a-car-ride fashion. “Thank god we’re finally here. Don’t think I could’ve handled anymore of Marco’s shifty right turns.”

“Excuse you. I’ll have you know the proctor that gave me my license said my right turns were very well done,” Marco argues a slight pout on his lips. He’s tired too but the insults won’t fix anything on anyone’s

Making his way up the pathway, no one is given much chance to reply or catch a second breathe before being overpowered by bodies latching onto every part of them trying to land a kiss somewhere on their faces. It’s a miracle Marco doesn’t trip over and land in one of his mother’s flower patches but there’s enough of a latch on him that of he went down the person attached to the front of his shirt would go down with him. And watching his mother fall into her own garden would be a disaster to clean up. She’s most definitely a crier. Example being the water stains etching into Marco’s shoulder right now.

“Hey mom it’s good to see you too. But I’m kinda about to fall over. And I really don’t want to ruin your flowers”

“Right. Sorry. Sorry honey,” she says, pure love in her voice, pulling away from him to allow him to stand up straighter but still not letting go of him at all. He is given a chance to look over her and he smiles down at his mother. Her hair has being going gray at the roots and Jean wonders how long it’s been since she went to the hair salon to get it died. Or as she said it ‘maintenance’. She’s still just as short as he remembers – barely making it up above his shoulders but enough for Marco to feel the tears already soaking through his thin sweater. His height he’d mostly gotten from his dad.

Marco turns around to see what had happened to Mikasa and Eren and he finds pretty much the same scene as both of them are being suffocated by their own mom and Eren has his entire face squished up into her neck. Marco notices he’s taking deeper breaths and his shoulders shudder a bit and turns back around to face his mom who grabs for his cheeks and smiles back up at him.

Looking behind his tiny mom, Marco finds his dad standing at the doorway smiling at him. He hadn’t changed either and Marco’s thankful that he can count on some things to always stay the same. He turns away from his mom and makes to give his dad a hug. And apparently mom’s logical solution is to latch onto Mikasa who’d been standing away from Eren and Mrs. Jaeger. She seems surprised by the proximity but it’s something none of us aren’t used to or weren’t expecting.

“How are you Marco?” my dad asks. Hearing his voice in person rather than through the static over the internet or telephone it seems to resonate into Marco. His dad was always a force to be reckoned with when angry but he was also someone that Marco could look up. And look up to him he did. He’d become almost a carbon copy of the man if you excluded the freckles that were very much from her mother.

“I’m great dad. Just missed you guys.” His mother turns away from Mikasa and practically comes running to hug the two men still standing on the doormat.

“Well now that the tears have been shed, we should get you guys in. You must be tired after such a long drive.”

Eren decisively peels himself off of Mrs. Jaeger and turns towards everyone else. His eyes seem a bit red and puffy but no one calls him out on it. “Thanks Mrs. Bodt for inviting us as well,” he slurs between sniffs.

She snorts in a rather mom-who-isn’t-about-to-be-called-old fashion and points a finger at Eren and says, “Now you know Eren that I will not have any of that. You might’ve been gone for a few years but it’s Keira. Now get on inside. You’re mom and I have a lot of food we need to get in you before you decide to leave for another two years without a single visit.”

She pushes them into the house, our faces covered with guilt. Apparently it really has been long enough for the bitter mothers to threaten with copious amounts of food. Not that any of them would ever complain. The moms had cooking down to a science that only they could accomplish under a time limit.

As they walk into kitchen it’s obvious they’d spent the entire morning stirring away. The table is ladled with everyone’s favorites and it takes all of Marco’s energy not to immediately sit down and stuff his face. Eren on the other hand plops straight into a seat and stares in awe at every dish laid out.

“Alright now grab a plate and get going. We only have so much time before you leave us again. And we need to get you as fed as possible,” Mrs. Jaeger says. It’s not a surprise that Mr. Jaeger is nowhere in sight and it gives Marco an opportunity to speak up.

“Hey, mom,” he starts grabbing a plate and loading it with his favorite and mother’s famous 9 layer dip and chips to go with it. He could probably eat the whole platter full is he was allowed to. “I actually wanted to ask you and dad something kinda important.”

He doesn’t take any time beating around the bush. Almost 20 years of his 21 years on this planet and he just wants to get it over with.

The look on his mother’s face shows concern and he watched the creases on her forehead between her eyebrows come together. She looks so much older when she makes that face and Marco has to look away for a bit, hating that he’s missed a few years of being around his mother. “What is it Marco?”

Marco takes a deep breath. This could either go two ways. Choice A is that it’ll be like pulling teeth trying to get his parents to tell him something about the house in Trost. Or choice B where they tell him everything and the puzzles fit together and Marco is able to find the way to help Jean and everyone lives happily ever after in their assigned realms.

“I was wondering if you and dad could tell me more about how you guys met. And maybe about that whole house business you told me stories about when I was a little kid.”

The few seconds before Marco gets a reply feel like an eternity. That feeling of dread builds up in his stomach like he’s just told his parents that he accidentally drove the car into large chasm after running over a lost dog. Or like a small child it’s that extreme. Whatever it could be compared to best, it makes Marco feel horrible watching his mother’s face contort into various emotions ranging from surprised to upset. Why would a simple question upset her?

His dad seems to take great interest in his plate filled with chips and sweets standing near the sink. When he notices, or feels, Marco’s on his looking for an answer he turns towards the table and reaches for more of Mrs. Jaeger’s apple fritters and resuming his position at the rusted, old sink. Except now he’s just turned away towards the old kitchen cabinets near his head. The view could not be that enjoyable so it’s obvious to Marco that dad’s not going to be any help in this.

He’s just about to place his plate of food down on the table – he’s not so hungry anymore – when she breaks the silence. It’s easy to see she’s trying to school her face into seeming nonchalant and emotionless but he’s used to the façade. He’s grown up with her after all and something says that whatever she’s about to say isn’t going to be the entire story.

“Marco you know the story. We met in high school and decided to move out only after we’d married and graduated. Which I’m hoping what all of you will be doing once you finish schooling in Trost. Isn’t that right Carla?”

Eren’s mom, who had been ostensibly latched onto the conversation, nods her head in a tranced agreement. She’d been smothering Eren with kisses and refilling his plate as well as Mikasa’s but it was obvious she had an interest in the discussion as well. “Right. Of course we can’t have any of you making rash relationship decisions without bringing them home to meet us. And all of which will be after graduation,” she says with finality mostly towards Mikasa. Eren not being in school apparently means the rules happen to not apply to him but instead of the smug grin you’d expect from Eren getting around the rules, he seems to be turning a shade of green.

Marco decides to cut in before Eren full blown shuts down from the talk of relationships and college. “Actually I’m more interested in the house from the stories. You used to tell them to me all the time and I’d remembered them one day and was hoping to maybe um….” He’s got nothing on why he would want the story retold to him. In more vivid detail. And telling his parents what they’d been up to for the past couple of days was definitely out of the question.

The room seems to be sucked of all the air in the room. Marco’s mother still stands in the middle of room, staring at him but even the others have stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Eren’s mother is the first to say anything, a look of interest in her eyes. They seem to sparkle under the old kitchen chandelier above the table and Marco doesn’t know what it even is that she has to offer on the subject.

“Marco. Why are you so interested in the house at Trost?” Her voice wavers for a second during her question and it seems to peak Mikasa’s interest as she looks down at the table’s wood grains, eyebrows furrowed together and her eyes obviously calculating something. She seems to be piecing together any assumptions or guesses faster than Marco can even think of how to respond to the question.

What is he supposed to say? He can’t very well tell them that their kids had decided to one take a Ouija board down to a haunted house and play catch he ghost. Successfully managing to find a spirit and promise to help bring their soul rest. And now we just want to know why everything seems to be connected to Marco’s weird dreams and feelings and why are you even so interested in my interest in the house? Wait, what?

In the end Marco ended up stretching the truth.

“Oh well…. We just found these books at the library talking about the house and I remembered mom’s stories and how they used to be from Trost so I figured asking her would be cool to find out more. And it also gave us an excuse to come visit the people we love most, of course,” he chuckles in a fist. Marco can feel his ears turning red and hopes to every god out there that either mom wouldn’t notice or that shear willpower can keep it down.

He’s never been the best at lying. And stretching out the truth and ignoring the question at hand both fall out on the same spectrum. Ears always turning a deep shade of red during the most unfortunate moments. Especially when they were all kids. He remembers the time he’d accidentally spilled an entire bottle of Elmer’s glue down the side of the table resulting in a puddle the size nearing the Pacific Ocean for a little kindergartener. He’d been terrified of the consequence of getting in trouble and yelled at. Or worse. Expelled. Knowing mom wouldn’t like that one bit little Marco had left the sticky goop on the floor and went outside to find someone to play on the slides with him. It wasn’t until later when the teacher had called in everyone from the yard for an explanation that Marco’s ears turn the shade of a new red Crayola, snot dribbling down his nose, refusing to say a single word that the truth spilled out of him like school glue on brand new blue carpet.

It wasn’t his most proud moment and the memory seems to bring up all the crap feelings of lying to someone that you, in a sense, look up to. But he can’t tell the truth. Not now. He’s not a snot-dribbling, five year old anymore and neither are Eren and Mikasa. He can trust himself to keep his intentions to himself. And he can trust them. Or at least he _could_ trust them.

“We talked to a spirit.” It’s barely above a whisper but the words still ring in Marco’s ears. Eren digs himself deeper into his seat, a little bit farther from his mother. And as he realizes everyone’s heads have shot in his direction, his ears are the more obvious perpetrators in the room. Except this guy doesn’t keep his mouth shut for anything as he continues to ramble. “Marco said the spirit’s name is Jean and that he wants to find out more about the legend behind the house. So we’ve been doing research and Marco pulled us in to help him talk to you. But-but I’m sorry Marco.” He turns to me and raises his eyes for a fraction of a second before they go back down to stare at his hands, wringing them on his lap. “I can’t lie to my own mom that we didn’t do stupid shit in a fucking haunted house.”

The shrill ringing from Eren’s words are interrupted by the louder yelling coming from near the counter. Except it’s not yelling. It’s the quietest whisper that leaves an even bigger sting than yelling ever could. Yelling would entail anger and Marco wants to know whether a stupid house could rile up such a storm. Whether going to the place means so much to his mother that she would yell at her own son.

But a whisper. A whisper could mean anything. And it leaves a colorless feeling in him. There’s no fire behind it all and maybe coming home and bringing it up was a hopeless idea. Useless.

“Marco-” she’s cut off from saying more by his dad.

“I think we’re done talking about this now. Now let’s just enjoy the fact that our kids are back with us even for just that day, yeah?”

The silence lengthens out as no one knows how to react. They don’t know what to say. Being shot down was something Marco had expected but he didn’t want it to happen. This was more than some haunted house. This was years of being in the dark about horrible dreams. Being _in_ the dark with horrible nightmares. But even his parents were keeping the full story for him. And Marco’s had enough.

But like hell is he going to yell and shout like a little kid getting caught making a mess with glue.

He sits down at the table in front of the plate of food long forgotten. Chips that were thrown too close to the dip growing soggy.

“There are stories that should not be shared to the world.” The voice catches in her throat and Marco looks up at his mother. She takes a shaky breath, eyes searching the linoleum floor of their kitchen. They should really think about putting down tiles. Maybe remodel the entire kitchen while they’re at it. “There are things people shouldn’t know. Things they don’t need to know. What happened in that house was nothing worth telling.”

“But mom-“

Something seems to snap inside of her. Whether it’s her patients or the memory of whatever it was that she saw in that house, her eyes blaze with heat and then dim down into small brown eyes, replicas of Marco’s own. He’s most definitely her son. The passion in her words seal the deal on any discrepancies if there ever were any.

“No! Entertaining people is not the rent I pay to live in this world, Marco. This isn’t story time and you’re not five anymore. They were merely a fairytale I told you to get you to fall asleep. Whatever you expected and whatever premonition you may have about any of it needs to stop. Now!”

Now it’s his turn. He could say something to calm her down. But that something in him – that urge to find out more – comes full force out of him. He can feel it surging through his veins from the inside out. It’s volatile and he’s going to regret it like crazy but he needs to get out. His vision is turning redder as he stares down at the grain of wood on the table. He can’t stand the feeling of being pushed off to the side. Of his feelings being thrown aside like it’s child’s play and nothing else. He doesn’t need to feel useless.

The chair screeches on the floor and he doesn’t even glance down to see if there’s a new mark left. He doesn’t care about the cracks in the floor or the cabinets or even in his own moth-

He only makes it across the room and under the doorway when he stops. His heart racing turns to sweats left dripping down the back of his neck but he wouldn’t dare swipe a hand back there.

Marco Bodt would never think of something that horrendously rude about someone else let alone his own mother.

Turning around would be a death sentence. He knows he’s upset his mom and facing it would be worse than walking through a room full of logos. But he can’t just ignore it. He needs to apologize before he explodes.

He’s stopped before he can even get a sound out. “Marco. Sit down.”

He follows his father’s directions – not wanting to upset anyone else. Everyone else seemed to have frozen into their seats. Eren giving up entirely on trying to stuff hand-crusted chicken fingers into his mouth.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he addresses Marco. “But I think we should enjoy the cooking your mother and Carla have done and lay this to rest. What do you think, Marco?”

With a slight nod of the head from Marco, his father lets out a sigh and resumes his nibbling on a piece of dessert.

For the rest of the day the tension remains in the room; slowly dissipating as hours pass by but remaining at the forefront of Marco’s every moves.

His lashing out was uncalled for. Something he would never do to his parents. Everything felt wrong about it. The feeling of seeing red in his vision and the urge to leave the house left a sour taste in his mouth. Like poison rushing through his veins. He felt trapped behind the fire, even if it had only lasted the few seconds. It was enough to make Marco worry.

This could just be the start.

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to keep reminding myself that I'm writing for fun and that I need to stop comparing the way I write to other people's work because this is my first attempt at writing out an entire story and just.. okay *deep breathe*
> 
> I hope that those still reading this fic aren't disappointed with this chapter. I'm mostly building up to Marco's parents' backstory and if I don't keep procrastinating this break, an update should be out in a week or two.
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/) if you want to bother me about anything. Otherwise: 
> 
> THANKS FOR READING IT MEANS A LOT!!


	9. Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco’s history comes to a rather subdued yet piercing light and while he fights his inner demons, Eren discovers his own truth behind a family heirloom behind closed doors.

The drive back home wasn’t any better. The constriction in Marco’s chest was suffocating him and within ten miles of driving away from his parent’s house, he’d handed the reins over to Mikasa to take over.

He needed to think. He needed a moment to breathe, to relax his anxiety, and to just stare at the book sitting on the seat next to him.

Before the three of them had left the house, Marco’s mom had silently slipped away coming back after a few moments, book in hand. She’d been mostly quiet and reserved since the argument in the kitchen and even with his attempts at making conversation, she’d ignored Marco to a certain degree. Such an odd gift from her was more than unexpected and a surprise.

Staring down at the thing next to him, Marco tries to assess what it could be. The binding on it seemed to be cracking apart and whatever was inside was seemingly important enough for rereading over the years. It looked overused enough to have gone through a lot of use.

He hadn’t taken the time to flip through the small book but from the alignment of the papers Marco could tell it was a mish mosh of different pages and writing material stuffed inside the small binding.

The urge to rip it open and find what was so important that his own mother wouldn’t talk to him but managed to find some crapped up book as a souvenir was somewhat dimmed by his mood though. He wanted to know what the book could have to offer and why was it now that his mom decided to bring it up. But he also didn’t want to think about anything right now. He probably needs three days to sleep his mood away and knowing he definitely didn’t have that just burned under his skin.

Eren’s voice comes from over the roar of the highway as they drive along in the night, windows rolled down to air out the constant smell of Eren’s gym shoes. Why he insisted on driving to a building where he’s going to be running away was beyond any grasp of common sense that even Mikasa agreed with him on.

The night sky was beautiful and if he cared enough to look outside, Marco would be able to see the constellations better than if he tried living in town. The lazy, orange hue of streetlamps were never the best conditions for stargazing. But unfortunately his mind is way more preoccupied with other things. He barely registers whatever Eren is saying until he hears his name in the mix of it all. “Marco. Are you gonna explain or what, man?”

He’s not being fair to his friends and Marco’s fully aware of it. But the feeling of being misunderstood and pushed offhand still sizzles in the pit of his stomach. Like a piece of burnt bacon that even Eren wouldn’t hound down his mouth. No one wants a piece of it and Marco could just as well keep it as that. He doesn’t need to tell his woes and worries to anyone and no one will think to ask.

“There’s nothing to explain. I just-just lost it for a second I guess.”

“Yeah we saw that,” Eren quips without missing a beat. “Dude, you never lose your head like that. Sure you get angry but, man. That was your mom you threw a tantrum at.”

Marco can feel his hands closing into a fist and he urges it to relax down. Eren has full sight of him from his seat up front. If he turned around and saw him tensing – it just wouldn’t be a pretty situation once they got home. “It wasn’t a tantrum,” he murmurs out the window. “I lost it. My bad. Don’t worry it won’t happen again.”

He can see Eren and Mikasa sharing a look from his peripherals but all he can do is sigh into his palms. It’s been a long day of achieving nothing. They’d planned on going back to the house this weekend. But seeing Jean with nothing to help him figure out his problem would be the worst thing to do.

Eren continues talking – probably happy to hear his own voice after hours of staying quiet what with Marco glaring daggers every time he opened his mouth after the kitchen fiasco – but it barely registers to Marco. Going in one ear and out the other as they say. “And what’s up with that book, anyway?”

“How am I supposed to know? The thing looks older than me and like it’s been hidden away in some locked chest or something.” He reaches over to assess the cover. There isn’t anything written on the front but in the corner, Marco can make out the faintest symbol etched into the leathery binding. The thing feels heavy in his hands like somehow the pages inside each weigh more than it would seem to and that, collectively, there’s more to the book than meets the eye.

Cliché. Cliché. All of it is a damn near cliché.

Dropping the book in his lap, Marco leans his head back against the seat. He runs his hands over his eyes in exhaustion or annoyance or whatever it is he really feels about today and sighs as he gazes back outside the window.

The sky is beautiful. And the lights of the stars attempt to reach down, to catch Marco’s eyes. But his mind is somewhere else as they focus on the glowing moon near the horizon. He needs to find something or seeing Jean is going to feel like he couldn’t get one thing right. Disappointment is not something he wants to see coming from those hazy light-brown eyes. Even if he is someone Marco’s just met; there’s something that’s pulling him to finding out more. Maybe it has more to do with himself than the boy stuck in the woods.

Eren’s voice comes floating back into his head after a second of silence. “Well. Maybe your mom decided she wanted to help and whatever’s inside the thing can tell us something.”

 

XXXXX

 

By the time Eren gets them home, insisting halfway through that they need to stop for food, it’s past midnight and technically Thursday.

If his math’s right, it means that gives them about two days to find something.

Mikasa resigns herself to the kitchen to refill her shaker bottle with water and slinks back to her room for the night mumbling something about “work tomorrow” and “you idiots should sleep too”, leaving Eren standing in the living room and Marco at the kitchen counter staring at the little book. Neither of them know what to say or who should say something first. The thought of sleeping not even on the mind for the moment.

It surprises Marco when he hears his voice cutting the silence first. “I think I’m gonna stay out here and stare at this book until my brain explodes.”

“Funny, Marco. You need some sleep man. The book can wait until the morning.” Marco can here the plead behind Eren’s words. The ‘please’ that’s accompanied with the concern. It’s in the way his voice wobbles for second and Marco wonders if maybe Eren’s tired too. Tired of hearing about Jean. Tired of putting up with Marco’s stupid endeavors that have no predictable future. Everything’s a shot in the dark and Eren sounds tired of running in the unknown.

“I’ll be there in a bit,” he say. Turning to face Eren, the weight of his gaze on his back, a sigh rushes out of Marco. From just the way he’s stood, hands in his pockets and shoulders tense, it’s easy to see Eren’s just as affected by everything if not even more. He gets to receive any backlash that Marco’s uncharacteristic mood swings may bring. “I promise.”

Having nothing to work with, Eren nods his head and turns around and goes towards their room leaving Marco alone. Again.

“Fuck.” It’s barely a whisper but in the silence of the room it feels like a sonic boom ripping through the past ten hours of Marco’s sanity. Dragging a hand down his face for what feels like the hundredth time that night and letting it rest at the nape of his neck, he’s given the little clarity he needs to stare the problem in the eye. The problem that could very well become the solution if what Eren said in the car rings true.

If this little book is some sort of peace offering from his mother that holds the story and secrets to the house then heck yeah this is the best day ever. If it’s some kind of homemade, self-help book that his parents think would help with his issues than fuck no.

Finding no other reason to stall the inevitable, he reaches across the counter and snatches the book. Propping it in front of him, a delicate few fingers reach up to flit the cover open. On the bottom of the first page, a drawing lays in the corner. It’s similar in shape to the one on the corner but it’s difficult to tell what it actually is other than a more elaborate etching of the cover. The smudges from the ink make it hard to discern what it could be but Marco’s breathe catches in his chest as he recognizes the sweeping eyes behind the drawing itself. Somehow eyes that stare up from under the top layer of ink that seems more recent than any of the other ink smudges on the page.

Letting himself take a moment to breathe, Marco realizes the death grip he’s had on the page. Resting his hand down on the counter, he looks over the page. The rest of the page doesn’t give much in detail. His mother’s name written in black in the center seems oddly wobbly compared to her usual signature. Other than that, there’s a title that she’s given to book. In the same shaky writing but written in a different shade of blue ink.

_Lock the Master Room_

Written next to it are odd squiggles and marks that resemble no letters Marco’s ever seen. He figures it’s probably chicken scratch and nothing important but the symbols stay on his mind as he flips through the next few pages.

A majority of the book seems to be written with the same black pen as her name, words still coming out shaky from the start and managing to get worse towards the middle and receding back to its original stage near the end in the shade of blue from the title page. Certain pages etched out or had whiteout soaked into the words on the page.

Pages on pages contain words filled from the top reaching all the way to the bottom. Whatever is written in the book needed full use of the small book and his mother knew it and used every bit of space – scrunching the words together while managing not to turn her shaking letters into a mess of ink splotches on the page. Every page is filled if not by words, then the same squiggles of the pen from the front page except with more variation. Almost as if it’s a totally different language. Like they were after thoughts during the times she struggles to find another word to write. Other pages hold drawings like before. Like Marco’s. Seemingly ordinary until your eyes focus in and you can see it staring back.

A shiver runs down his back as he picks the book back up to stare at the pages.

The feeling of eyes on the back of his neck crawls through his body. Skin turning clammy over the revelation that some part of the puzzle may actually be found in this weird book.

Maybe he should go back and apologize to Eren for acting like a douche to him all week.

No. First there’s the task of actually reading the thing, there might not even be anything about the myths behind the house. And hopefully Eren’s actually in bed after the mess the day’s already been and snoring and dreaming for him.

But if he’s lucky, there’ll be something Marco will find.

Flipping back to the front page, and avoiding all eye contact with the shaded corner of the pages where his mother had scribbled near holes into them, Marco turns the page and begins reading.

Dissolving into the story only his mother could tell.

 

XXXXX

 

Not everything has a described solution to its problem. There are points in your life where the solution could be as complex as obtaining a spaceship and traveling to a distance planet to milk a special cow. Or it could be as simple as clicking together two pieces of Legos. Some problems come with multiple solutions; fix that piece together or using a different piece and getting another, just as appropriate, result. But the key to finding the solution, no matter how complex, is finding the information needed to understand the problem thoroughly. Without understanding what it is that needs fixing, what would be the point of the journey to find a solution. There would be no cause for internal motivation. There wouldn’t be an understanding on how the more complex problems could find its missing puzzle piece.

Every problem has a solution. And every solution requires prior knowledge of some concept that could be applied to the situation.

Knowing that much, especially from his experience at university, Marco has absolutely no damn clue at what he’s looking for. He has no clue what the problem really is. No clue what solution he’s searching for to solve whatever it is that Jean needs help solving.

Thus, begging the question: why the hell is Marco Bodt still awake in the kitchen pouring himself into some dusty book like it’s the Ramayana or Holy Scriptures that could gift those who participate and read its word with all knowledge to aide in understanding what the function of a rubber duck is?

Only jagged pieces of the story ever coming forward from the massive pile of words on each flip of the page. All of it too much to take in at such a late hour but not enough to give Marco peace.

 

XXXXX

 

_Dwight had said that it would be an adventure. Spending Christmas Eve, the most joyous day of the year, together alone in the woods. Of course, the sucker never meant anything bad by the request. He’s an adventure seeker and I just couldn’t resist the look on his face when he described his plans. He was so excited and I wasn’t going to deny my future husband the fun you can only have when you’re young and in still in high school._

_So the plans were set. A small bag of essentials and well… protection later and we tracked out into the woods. The night was chilly and the wind that blew through the branches made the oddest noises. Wood scraping on wood sounding like nails on chalkboard; leaves rustling on the ground like a third pair of footsteps walking along the footprints we left behind on the ground; bowing branches creaking against gravity sounding like a parade of rusty wagons following in our wake. Real creepy stuff and with the chill running down the back of my dress, the tiniest feeling of dread was somehow suppressed with every glance back I received from Dwight. He was giddy and bouncing on his toes, excited for what we could find in the house._

_~~But as they say, curiosity killed the cat.~~ _

_He was adorable when the call for adventure rang._

_-_

_The room was cold. Icy hands holding every part of my body with a death grip that I couldn’t pull away from. I could hear Dwight thudding around; running up the staircase. Trying to get to me. Every few seconds the sounds of his screams coming through the narrow slit of the door I was leaning against as he slid back down the steps. Steps coated in blood. Blood the seemed to have been dripping from this room itself._

_I was so stupid to go and find the source of all of the blood. I should’ve stayed in the living room where Dwight had left me while he went out back searching for somewhere to pee. But curiosity won out. And I ended uplift staring into the corners of the room. Trying to find the source of scuffling coming from the space past my feet._

_It was so dark. The only light coming from the crack under the door where Dwight kept huffing, telling me to not worry, he’s on his way. Even the window, curtains shifted away from it, seemed to exclude any sort of light that a moon would’ve given. The room suffocating with what little I had. Without my vision it felt like being swept away, off my feet, the ice cold air leaving daggers in my lungs and I wondered: is this what drowning feels like? To lose your footing when you know the ground is there underneath you. But where is underneath?_

_The sounds of Dwight yelling becoming increasingly drowned out by the raspy breaths and scrapes on wood from the darkest parts of an already pitch black room. I could feel myself shaking, hands unable to lay flat on the floor I’d somehow found myself sitting on. I was so sure I had been standing a second ago._

_Sliding across the floor, the sounds of the wood floor creaking under the weight of whatever lived in the corner the panic started to settle in every part of my body. The smell of tar and gasoline mixed together with what could only be the smell of rotting flesh and death. The taste of cold but not like the cold you taste on a fresh winter morning. No. This was entirely vile. Its entire essence lingering over the room and soaking through the pores of my skin. It was all too much. A sensory overload. ~~Yet I couldn’t get myself to move.~~ I remember thinking “get the hell up before you become demon chow, you idiot” but my feet just wouldn’t budge. Only the feeling of my shaky fingers, nails knocking against the grains of the floor threatening to leave everlasting marks if need be. _

_I couldn’t die in some house in the forest. I wouldn’t._

_Before a sound could even leave my mouth, it was like someone killed the power. The room was still, light from the once quiet moon, streaming through the musty curtains again. Whatever had been with me in the room before was gone. Like it’d never existed._

_Dwight running up the stairs came from the other side of the door and for a second I wondered how I’d managed to end up on the floor at the foot of the bed until the sound of wood splintering and a body falling into the room took away my attention. I could see, even in the dark, the wild look in his eyes as he searched for me. Eyes finally landing on me led to probably the farthest I’ve ever seen a man lunge across the room. He held onto me for minutes, whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Reassurances that everything was okay now and that he was with me and nothing would happen to me with him around to protect me. And I knew I was in safe hands. I couldn’t be touched and whatever being I had seen or imagines was gone now and I would be fine._

_Even with the growing stains of blood soaking into our clothes. The source of which we never were able to find on our bodies but from what seemed to be the floorboards themselves. Warm, red liquid coming in chunks of bubbles from the floor where I sat._

_It was then that we decided to leave. To forget everything that had happened that night._

_A promise to never mention the stairwell dripping with blood that seemed to evaporate once the demon itself had vanished. A promise to forget my favorite beautiful, blue dress I wore that night, now soaked in the red liquid, in one of the bedrooms. A promise to find a store to get pain medication for the pain in my legs and thighs that burned like the feeling of eyes staring from a corner of a damp, dark room._

_Looking back, I still wonder what had happened to get me 5 feet away from where I’d sat leaning against the door a second before._

_-_

_It’s been years since the incident. I know Dwight never likes it when I bring it up so maintaining this little journal is all I have until the day I take it with me to my grave. He knows I write my thoughts in here and I’m sure by now he’s guessed the topic of discussion on these filled pages. But I need my place and space to speak._

_What had happened that night was more than we decided to ignore._

_Marco should’ve been a normal little boy. All chubby and beautiful with hair just like fathers. He has my freckles and – from the looks of how he sleeps during the nights we wane him off the nightlight – the visions I see._

_I read somewhere that some people are born with tornadoes in their lives, but constellations in their eyes. Other people are born with stars at their feet, but their souls are forever lost at sea. Every time I looked into the deep brown eyes of Marco I could see something swimming in their depths. As though he weren’t fully a part of ‘our world’ or he belonged and deserved to be somewhere else. It was an odd feeling; thinking about your own child in such a manner could not have been healthy. The feeling that my little baby was something more or less human made me ~~sick~~ – upset. Physically tired enough to ask Dwight to try again. _

_Maybe the next wouldn’t bring chills up my spine as he sat in his crib in the dark staring through the crib’s netting into the dark._

_But even with the birth of Ymir, the odd sensations remained. Although they had lessened._

_That is, until the drawings came when Marco learned how to pick up a crayon and discovered the medium of wall art and the sensation of panic was enough for Dwight to intervene and end whatever any of these theatrics in our family were. We took Marco to people that claimed they could get rid of evil spirits and demons in humans. They claimed they could remove all traces and the person affected wouldn’t remember a think. They’d group up without an inkling of what had been within their souls._

_All I hoped for was Marco to never remember any of the things he could’ve possibly seen in the dead of night. I don’t want my baby to suffer nightmares for years after._

_We believed them when they said he would return to the state of a normal child. But how can I ever say that what Marco was, wasn’t normal? A mother cannot ever agree internally that her child is an abnormal._

_My dear Marco is my child and not a production of dark magic and that is a fact I will fight anyone who says otherwise of._

_Marco was never a mistake but those few moments during his childhood reassured the growing thought in my head that going to the house was._

_-_

_The drawings have stopped. At least they have for Marco._

_I sometimes find myself doodling on the backs of receipts and stationary paper and it’s a fight to get my hand to stop moving across the page. But the drawings are less fierce now. They don’t contain the piercing gazes; rather, the shades of an empty space with no discernible light. Just dark._

_I’m not entirely sure if I should take this as a sign of hope. As a sign that the demons in the shadows have left our family. Or if the darkness holds something far worse that even the human eye cannot see._

_I hadn’t seen anything that night in the house in the woods and maybe this is a foretelling of bigger things to come. There might be more to come but until that day comes, I will protect and keep my son away from any forces that threaten to take my family away._

_I know a promise made within pages can mean nothing for many cultures. But a vow is a vow and if the time comes I hope to have the strength I didn’t have those years ago to help my little boy._

 

XXXXX

 

Marco was just seven when he first went to the state fair and the amount of sensations being tickled pink from the food and entertainment and sheer number of people was enough to make him dizzy with giddy excitement. It was the rush of every emotion fathomable flooding through your system. Joy at seeing the balloon animals that look like monkeys wrapped around palm trees. The feeling of a weight dropping in your stomach when you realize just how high the rollercoaster you’re in line for goes. Afraid that if you turned around, you might lose sight of your parents or worse – where that booth with the sugary lollipops with the spiral sticks are sold. It’s feeling nauseous from the round up after eating a rather large plate of funnel cake and chilidogs because you told your mom you’re a big kid now and you could finish all of it.

But what’s even better is every second of emotion that manages to stay with you years after the day. Going home and remembering the best of it and remembering the worst a bit less and less as you go on trying to figure out if you were ever even happy. Whether you were ever truly happy. Years of repressing the bad and trying to bring out the light because it makes the day that much more tolerable.

Sitting at the counter was a game of déjà vu for him. He didn’t know if he should be excited over the fact that a huge breakthrough in their searching was just achieved. Or whether the few lines where uncertainty was evident in his mother’s shaky handwriting should upset him. Should he be allowed to be angry that at some point his mother didn’t trust herself to be alone in a room with him out of sheer fear of the unknown? Or should he be reacting in large to the fact that written evidence states his life has always been a little more on the demon-grabbing side and he apparently saw ghosts in the corners of rooms as a baby. No big deal, or course. Just the usual in the Bodt house.

Whatever emotion rushing through his head was cut short, though, as a bustled-up Eren stumbles out of their room in his Captain America boxers and t-shirt. Hair a rumpled mess, all he’s able to get out of his mouth is dry air and loud mumbling until he straightens up a little and stares open-mouthed at the dusty book in his hands. The mess that is Eren Jaeger is definitely a sight to see especially after the rollercoaster of emotions still settling in the pit of Marco’s stomach.

“Oh god.” It’s all that Marco can get out as Eren still stares at the closes book in his hands and Marco stares at Eren with his own mess in his hands. Eren looks up when he hears Marco shuffle in his stool at the counter and gapes at him. If you looked close enough, a puddle of drool was probably pooling in his mouth and threatening to spill out any second.

It’s like word vomit that spills from his mouth when Eren finally finds the hook in his voice. Marco’s surprised he can even comprehend a straight thought process let alone any word Eren says.

“I was trying to sleep – but I couldn’t so – I found this book. It talks about a key and my dad gave me the key when I was little before he left and just-“

Marco’s stomach fills back up with that feeling of absolute dread. Eren never brings up his father and after years of knowing him, Marco’s aware that bringing it up is the worst idea if you want a cooperative friend that doesn’t threaten to punch a hole in the wall and then lay on the ground forcing in the tears threatening to spill out. It had always been a sore subject and it was safe to assume it was because of the sudden disappearance of his father without a single word of warning. He’d left in the dead of night when Eren was just a kid, a couple months after they’d adopted Mikasa. The event had destroyed Eren. Mikasa had for a time felt that it was her presence that caused him to leave but she’d learned early that this couldn’t be on the shoulders of a six year old. Eren, on the other hand, didn’t see it anything besides that. He blamed himself for years until Marco told him to cut it out but even then he’d held witness to a couple of breakdowns when the subject was broached. And like hell was Marco going to ever remind him of shittier times.

Eren keeps talking, most of it concerning his family and some kind of basement with a door that leads somewhere and it’s all jumbling up as Eren’s speech gets worse as he goes on. He’s on the verge of completely slurring his words, shoulders getting heavier and the threat of dry heaves already showing as his breathing gets rough.

Eren panicking in the middle of the night is as transparent as the film on TV dinners and Marco slowly makes his way towards him. Leaving the book he’d gotten from his mother, he leaves his hands to his sides, hoping to calm Eren down.

“All right. Timeout! Eren, what does it say in the book? Why are you bringing up Dr. Jaeger and what does he have to do with anything you’ve read?”

His voice is shaky but the words are clearer when he replies. “It’s not about my dad as much as it’s about his side of the family, I think.” The trembling in his hands are apparent and every few seconds Marco watches his entire body shiver as if a ghost’s just ran through him to keep him awake as he tries to explain again. “I’m not sure what any of this means. I think-I think we should take this to Armin to look at. All I know is that it talks about some kind of gateway or something that leads to an agreement involving some kind of sacrifices and I _really_ don’t know, Marco.”

His voice reaches near pleading as his eyes turn up to look directly at Marco. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why dad left and I don’t understand why some stupid key he gave me is in this stupid fucking book. I don’t god fucking know how I’m somehow now connected in this asswipe of an adventure and it’s just dumb that I feel useless because apparently my family might be the entire reason this is happening.”

That feeling’s back again.

Excitement of finding the unknown but the fear of knowing too much and hurting yourself later.

Eren getting hurt wasn’t part of the plan.

Eren’s left wheezing and clutching the book in his grip, threatening to split it in half. But Marco knows Eren; and he would never do it. There’s too much invested in this now for either of them to fuck this up.

All Marco can do now is make sure Eren doesn’t pass out in the middle of the living room and he doesn’t lose his mind overthinking everything on his mind before it’s a decent enough time to contact Armin. Until then, he maintains eye contact with him until he’s able to grab the spare blanket on the couch and wrap it around Eren and lead him back to their small room and seat him on his bed.

He lets Eren lay his head on his lap, taking the book from his hands and setting it on his cluttered desk. It was just like when they were little and Eren would wake up in the middle of the night at sleepovers crying and wanting to go back home. A slight panic attack was something Marco knew how to handle and when it came to Eren, he knew all the boy wanted was to know that someone was always there with him. Marco played that role very well and the promise he made when they were ten would ring true until the day Eren moved on.

Marco would always be there for him no matter what.

No shitty father-figure could keep Eren down for long and soon he was snoring, head on Marco’s lap, listening to his mumblings of reminders that they’d had building for years. Reminders that they were best friends and there for each other forever. That people come and go but the important people would always be there. That chocolate still exists and reruns of House Hunters would be marathoning next week so that was something to look forward to. A reminder that Mikasa and Armin love him no matter what. Reminders that if Marco can be here supporting him for over a decade, anyone would be willing to do the same because they loved him enough to know it happens. That breaking down is nothing to ashamed of and it’s only human to become overwhelmed.

He does it for a best friend and for the tiniest of sleepy whispers he gets in return.

“Thank you, Marco.”

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to like this again now that I feel like I can get along with the plot. The next chapter is in the works and will be posted sometime before I start school next Monday but until then I like reading comments.
> 
> So tell me something interesting. What's you favorite JeanMarco fic you think I should read or if you're writing one then def tell me about it! Tell me what you think about the little book of secrets Keira threw at Marco like an anchor into his hands. Not sure if I want it to be something he can steady himself on or if it'll just end up drowning him further out. 
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/) if you want to yell at me


	10. History or Myth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game's turned to something more than just demon's play. The stories of ghosts and evils has turned to unraveling things that come with history.

It took Armin an hour to realize just what was in his hands.

Marco had planned on calling him and the others as soon as Mikasa could be heard bustling around in the kitchen. He hadn’t gotten much sleep what with Eren latched onto his waist but he was able to shut his eyes for a total of three hours when 8am came around.

Instead he walked out of their room towards the direction of the kitchen, Marco knew he looked like crap and the face Mikasa made, made it more clear that the under eye bags and pale complexion were in full swing.

“You look like shit,” was all that she said around the cup of coffee at her mouth. Before noon, pretty much everyone in their apartment took the stuff like it was a blood substitute.

“I know. Um well… it’s just. Something happened last night.”

This seems to grab her attention and wake her up quicker than the strongest coffee they could buy. She sets down her cup on the counter looking ready to pounce into action if it called for it. “Is Eren okay?”

“Eren’s fine,” Marco replies quietly. “Well as fine as I could get him. He said he found something in one of the books that involved his family and I guess it triggered something like when we were little – but he’s fine now, Mikasa. He’s sleeping. But I think what he found might be really important or at least worth a bit of looking into.”

Mikasa sighs and looks towards the door Marco had shut to keep the noise down for Eren. She trusts Marco enough to know that Eren is probably snugged tight in his bed with a pillow under his head and feet just how he liked it since when they were young. The mothering instinct in her is pushed down in favor of looking at Marco and nodding her head.

“I have to go to work but I’m sure Armin would be free to look at the book. He can probably use a break from the professor he’s working for anyway. He’ll know whatever the book is talking about.”

“Wait. Professor? I thought he worked in admissions?”

“He did. He was talking about a graduate student job working for some chemistry professor on Saturday.” She clucks her tongue in what Marco knows as her way of showing irritation and turns to face him. “Were you even paying attention to anything that night, Marco.”

“Apparently not,” he whispers sheepishly. His hand reaches over to rub at his neck. He’s been out of it for the past week and it’s starting to really show.

“Marco. I know this is important to you – we all do. But you need to relax a little. Come back to earth for like a day before you really throw yourself into this. We’re gonna go see Jean tomorrow and we don’t want any stupid decisions happening because you refused to take care of yourself. We don’t need any more episodes like Eren’s.”

“I know.”

“Call Armin. He’ll help with Eren. I need to go now-but Marco?” Marco looks up at the questioning tone. “You know we love you as much as if you were one of us, right?”

Marco smiles a little, lips quirking up a bit in all its hazy glory. “I love you guys too.”

She smiles back at him and without another word, leaves him in the living room and heads out the door.

Exhaustion threatens to overwhelm Marco and he figures an hour of napping wouldn’t hurt their efforts.

Eren’s not even close to waking up and Marco doubts he’ll be well enough to make his shift in a couple of hours but until it’s time for him to call the store and let them know Eren won’t be coming in, a good little bout of sleep should leave both of them ready for any amount of discussing with Armin.

Sleeping might root me to my thoughts and get me relax. At this point all Marco has felt is a grip around him and feeling as if he’s being drowned or strangled. But the best deterrent is to become calm so the panic never sets to affect the concentration. And there was no way that Marco would let anything slip by in his plans to gain insight.

Whatever Eren had found might fill in the holes but Marco still feels unfinished and we obsess over the things we feel are unfinished.

 

XXXXX

 

It isn’t until 10am rolls around that Eren begins to stir. He’s groggy as if he’s just risen from the depths of hell and from where Marco’s perched on his bed scrolling through his laptop, he could see his face clearly go from confusion to panic landing his flailing body wrapped in blankets on the floor. In a heap on the floor, all Eren could do was moan and whine at the hardwood muffled by the thin blanket that wrapped itself over his head.

It was probably the most human thing Marco’s seen in a long time from Eren and he’s very glad to have befriended a real idiot.

“Wakey wakey. Eggs and bakey.” He shouts in Eren’s direction.

He gets a loud groan from the lump of fabric still squirming on the ground and then a more energetic, mumbled response. “You made bacon?”

“I didn’t make bacon but we can before we go see Armin. And maybe some eggs if you’re up for it.”

Eren raises his head, confusion creasing his forehead and eyes crusty with sleep. Marco raises his eyebrows in amusement and waits for the inevitable.

A second later and Eren’s back down facing the ground mumbling something that sounds like, “right. The dumb book I found.”

Marco chuckles back at him but quickly schools his expression when Eren pushes back up to lean his chin in his hands propped up on his elbows.

“So. That was pretty bad last night, huh?” he mutters. Free hand tracing patterns in the grain of the floorboards. There are chips everywhere in the floor from where Eren’s weights and desk chairs have broken down the clear laminate coating. The idea of buying an area rug for the general area around Eren’s bed pops into Marco’s head and he gives a tiny smile towards the boy.

“I guess but it wasn’t totally bad. Stuff happens and you panicked. It’s okay, dude.” Marco looks back down at his laptop as Eren nods his head. He still hasn’t looked up from the ground, eyebrows drawn together as he mulls over his thoughts. Marco hopes he’s not thinking about last night’s episode or regretting what happened in front of Marco. The boys have been used to helping each other since they were in middle school and it would just be silly for anything like that to come up now, over a decade later.

“And besides,” he continues. Closing the laptop and shuffling up to place it on his desk, Marco makes it over to sit in front of Eren on the floor. “We have bigger fish to fry. You said something about the key your dad left you and maybe now we’ll finally be able to find out what the dang thing could possibly open.”

Ever since Eren’s dad had given the small iron key to Eren, the possibilities of where the key’s partner could be and what it could open had been a mission for both boys. The key was simple enough with its diamond shaped handle and two-pronged blade, it didn’t give much information or value to its existence. There wasn’t any initials or company names that could be traced or researched. It was just a blank key and once Eren’s dad disappeared from the Jaeger household, it had deserved its place at the bottom of Eren’s sock drawer.

Eren had packed it in with his things after much deliberation when Marco had helped him cram their lives into boxes and now it lived somewhere in this room. He hadn’t told Marco where he’d stuffed the key but Marco knew Eren wouldn’t have thrown away the last thing he’d received from his father. No matter how big of a douche the guy was for leaving their family in the dead of night.

“Yeah,” comes Eren’s voice, barely a whisper. “I have the thing stuffed somewhere in the shoeboxes under my bed. But it-it was just so weird. I was reading and then suddenly a sketch of the key was just on the next page.it was like I was meant to find the damn thing or something.”

The memory of Annie telling Marco and Armin the possibility of finding new information was little to none flashed through his mind. She’d told him to report back anything interesting but this was just plain too weird to even explain. The chances of finding an image of some old key you’d been given a decade ago in a book in a town hours away from home was minimal to say the least. This was getting to be more than anything Marco expected.

There was no way Annie could’ve known about the key. No could’ve known about it outside of their little family. How the hell did she realize back then that they might find something in that pile of useless papers?

Eren’s voice cuts through his thoughts, stronger than what it was a second ago. “So how about that bacon before we go pillage through Armin’s mind?”

“As long as I don’t end up in the middle of a fight or love-fest between you two, I’m down.”

The blush that rises on Eren’s cheeks are enough to get Marco up and running out of the room, still laughing, before Eren’s brain can catch up and he ends up with a punch in the arm sporting a new bruise. But as he makes it past the threshold of their bedroom door he shouts back at the flabbergasted expression Eren’s holding. “And don’t forget to brush and shower. You smell like you’ve been trapped in that blanket for days.”

“You butt!” Comes a flustered response. A crash sounds out and Marco figures Eren’s thrown another pillow at the bookshelf again and laughs at him from where he’s now standing in the kitchen setting to make more coffee.

Marco busies himself in the kitchen as Eren flounders around their room, only peeking up when he hears the padding of footsteps running from the bathroom they shared with Mikasa and back to their room.

“Did you already call the store?” Eren calls from the open bedroom door. Marco looks up and comes face to face with a half-dressed 21 year old with way too many muscles hidden underneath his usual sweaters. But all Marco can feel is exasperation as he watches Eren trip over the coffee table in the living room while trying to put on his sweater and walk at the same time. He finally ends up in the stool at the counter across from Marco after many failed attempts to stick his arm through the neck hole rather than a sleeve.

“Yeah. I called and said you weren’t feeling to well and that it’s probably that bug that’s been going around lately.”

“Or it’s my crippling panic attacks that’ve got me down but that’s cool too,” Eren says offhandedly. Fingers now playing with the journal Marco had left on the counter last night, he seems to pick up the stare he’s receiving from the guy behind a hot frying pan. “What?”

“Nothing. You just seemed more relaxed than usual. I thought appealing to your bacon sense would help after last night but I guess that’s not necessary.”

“Uh, no. That is still very necessary. Bacon is everything, dude. Don’t even play.”

“Fine! You’ll get your bacon. But you also get to be the one that calls up Armin to explain the situation.” Eren groans into his palms at that. Marco chuckles as he finishes plating the traditional, Marco-breakfast-spectacular scrambled eggs and makes his way to get the bacon out of the fridge. Dropping a couple slices into the pan, waits out the sizzle and continuous groaning from the mop of head leaned against the counter. “So. Are you gonna ask him out soon or what?”

This deserves an even louder groan from Eren and then a moan in appreciation for the plate of food placed in front of him. Marco waits a second longer to serve the bacon knowing fully well that it’s the last piece to get Eren talking. Eren, on the other, sees the game Marco’s playing at and sighs and pulls out the puppy dog eyes. “Marco,” he stresses, hand latched onto the fork Marco had placed down next to the plate.

Marco smirks, plating the bacon and handing it over to Eren to munch on while he turns and gathers a couple of mugs for their coffee. He comes back, correct amount of sugar and creamer and everything and takes the seat next to Eren.

Eren graciously takes his special Avengers mug from when they’d all gone to Los Angeles when they were young and sips at the brew, determination in his eyes. With nothing else to do with himself, Marco starts to take a bite of his eggs remembering to buy more Tapatío sauce for these rare occasions when he actually cooks something as bland as white paint. He doesn’t understand how Eren can stomach the stuff without adding even just a bit of pepper.

He finally sets his mug down and takes a deep breath as Marco waits – munching on a piece of bacon. He never was much of a fan but it was better than just eggs and coffee for a meal. “Okay so I’ll just call him and say we found something interesting and that we want his opinion.”

“Mhm,” Marco replies. His hand turns to fiddling with the book now. Fingers glossing over the little sketch in the corner, temptation to flip the cover open and trace his mother’s handwriting burning under his fingertips.

“I-I’ll attempt to explain the key situation without overthinking things and just hand him the book and tell him to find whatever he finds and let us know.”

“Right.”

“So we’ll need to go and see him. Won’t he be at work or that internship thing? I don’t think we should bother him. Since I’m home I could just-”

“Nope.” Marco cuts him off. “Mikasa said that he’s due for a break from the internship so this would be a perfect time to go bother him.”

“But I doubt Dr. Hanj-”

“I’m sure the professor can stand to let Armin take a day off. The guy’s probably been locked away for days by now.” Marco chances a glance at Eren. His head hung low, fork swinging around in his hand, barely touching the half-eaten, bland eggs. It’s clear to see that there’s something on Eren’s mind and Marco takes the silence and continues eating.

He’ll speak up once he’s ready.

Eren takes a deep breath after a minute to recollect his thought and finally cracks his resolve. “Armin and I-we’d be good, I think. I hope. But I just sometimes don’t know how to do it. Like a real relationship. He’s more than just a quick make-out session in the bathroom of a seedy club.”

“Wait,” Marco cuts in smirking. “You’ve done that? When the heck are you even going out to be doing that?”

“Hush, Marco. I’m trying to talk about my feelings here.”

“Right sorry. Continue,” he says. Taking a sip of his coffee – wondering if the trip to the pantry is worth the sugar – and sits back to listen.

Eren huffs at his plate and decides that he’s really not in the mood for eggs anymore and pushes if away from his seat and brings the plate of bacon towards himself. “Like I was saying. Armin means a lot to me and I don’t know if I want to ruin that. And before you cut in with your rude interruptions of the obvious, yes. I know that Armin probably has feelings for me. I’m not blind and I know that he can see I like him a bit too. But sometimes I just feel like now isn’t the time to be settling with anybody. Armin has his internship and coming into the picture might make him stressed out or something. Like what if he thinks I expect constant contact with him and he gets upset because we both know he won’t have the time to go on dates and spend the night or whatever. And what if he thinks that it’s more brotherly love if anything after we get together. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to handle that. What if-”

“Eren there are so many what-ifs, you’re giving me a headache,” Marco cuts in through his rambling. “Yes, those things could happen. But I think the best part of you two is that both of you guys are willing to work through it. I know Armin would do anything for you and he wouldn’t just toss you away. If anything he’ll toss you like his name’s Romaine.”

“I tucking hate you for that,” Eren groans.

Marco chuckles into his palm and reaches over to steal the plate of eggs from Eren’s side. “You love me. Now go and call to see if he can escape that professor you said – what’s their name?

“Dr. Hanji or something.”

 

XXXXX

 

It takes Eren another ten minutes of nonsensical chewing and muttering until Marco loses it and shoves the boy’s cell phone into his hands. The bright light of the Samsung flashing into Eren’s face as he glares at the thing.

A tiny mumble comes from him as he continues staring at the phone. Marco barely hears it over the running water at the kitchen sink where he’s cleaning up. “Do you think he’s still mad about the fight?”

“I’m pretty sure he was over it the second we left the car, Eren. Or he at least forgave you enough out of pure love and for the sake of friendship, doesn’t plan on bringing up the event again.”

Marco wipes his hands against a towel and tosses it behind him as he steals back the seat he was at. “You two just need to talk and maybe this will help the both of you. You’ll get to talk out everything with Armin and maybe Armin will understand just how much he means to you if he knows you can trust him with this. Armin needs reassurance and this is probably a sure fire way.”

“Marco. You’re an idiot but you’re right,” Eren chuckles, shaking his head. He glances over to Marco and drops his gaze down to the book set down on the counter. “So are going to tell me anything about this musty old book your mom gave you?”

“Just that my life may revolve around the fact that my mother encountered a demon 20-something years ago.” He fiddles with the worn-out binding. “It isn’t clear what happened when she supposedly saw the thing but it pretty much screwed her up forever.”

“What do you mean? She’s seemed like any normal mom to me for the past decade.”

“She-she talks about regretting it. About going there that night. And she talks about when I was little, I would act weird and she always felt like the demon’s presence was always there with her. With me in some way.”

“Has it?” Eren asks. He turns his body to fully face Marco and Marco can feel his eyes boring holes into his face.

“Has what?” Marco inquires back. He keeps his gaze forced down at the book in front of him, eyes straying anywhere but the lower right corner of the cover.

“Has this demon your mom talks about always been there? Marco. What are you hiding? Is this why all of this is so important to you? Because you wanted to figure out why you see things in the dark and paint creepy paintings in your spare time? Marco?!” Eren’s near yelling in exasperation of Marco’s silence. He sits there, letting Eren flounder around with whatever assumptions his mind is probably making. All of it is most likely right, anyway.

He takes a beat to let Eren catch a breath against the counter before he speaks up again. “Yeah,” he whispers. Clearing his throat, Marco continues talking it out. He owes Eren enough to share some of his own trouble. Eren would never say it aloud but Marco knows that Eren has always been grateful for having Marco there to listen to him and that he’s always expected to get the same treatment in return. And now was Marco’s chance to return the favor. To make their friendship mutual, in a sense, with nothing left to hide. “I used to think that there were demons living in the corners of my room and in the closet. When I was younger, I used to talk to them and try to make them tell me stories. I never could remember the small details in the stories but all I could remember was something about making sure the door was kept locked. They told me that locking the door would keep the bad guys away and I guess I grew up thinking one of my parents had told me that. But after reading this stupid journal, I know it wasn’t my parents.

“Mom wrote down the phrase,” he opens the cover to show Eren. “’Lock the master room’ on the first page. I think whatever comes from the darkness has been talking to the both of us since that night my parents went to the house. Somehow whatever had happened that night transferred down to me through some weird blood line ritual, I don’t know. But the point is, I’m not alone. Mom saw them too which means that’s another clue, right? Maybe whatever your book says about the key has something to do with locking the master room.” Marco’s enthusiasm has him pacing the small amount of flooring behind the stools at the kitchen counter.

Eren stays sitting in his seat, staring up at the frantic hand movements Marco’s making, brain trying to catch up with all of this new information. Marco knows it wasn’t the best to just dump a pile of information and life struggles onto someone even if they were best friends but it’s been something so bottled up, Marco can’t help to babble endlessly.

“That’s a lot,” Eren finally replies. He looks down at the phone in his hands and Marco figures it’d be best to let him have a second longer to process. He sits back down on the stool and they both stay there together in silence as Marco tries to relax from the sudden epiphany and Eren sorts through too much information in too little time.

After another five minutes of waiting for nothing to happen, Marco pushes them forward. “Call Armin. We should get started on this as soon as we can. We should have as much as we can figured out before we go out tomorrow.”

Eren picks at the case on his phone, the picture of some movie series half-way scratched off already. He’s looking for the right words to say and even as he opens his mouth, the words seem stunted and broken at its possibilities. “Marco, what are you planning to do when we get to see Jean again?”

“I don’t know. But we don’t need to worry about that right now. Call Armin and I’m gonna go and take a quick shower.”

Eren nods his head, sliding the phone unlocked and staring at the home screen. Marco leaves him to it and moves to the bedroom, gathering his things and shutting the bathroom door. He slides against the door, exhaustion finally affecting him enough to knock him down. He takes a deep breath and goes about his business hoping Eren’s out there making some kind of amends with Armin.

 

XXXXX

 

It’d been almost a week, if the rising and setting sun can even be trusted in the damn house of horrors.

The door has managed to withstand everything Jean’s put against it and he doubts any real dent could be made on the thing. All he’d managed to do was leave angry scratch marks alongside ones that’ve already been there from who knows when. The premise of it left shivers running down his exposed back and he usually ended up scurrying around to keep the bed to his back and surrounding himself with the pages.

Nothing new had come from the readings on Eren’s papers but with so much time and a numbing brain, Jean was able to scrounge up a couple words from the other sheets thrown about. Most of them were full of useless shit that wasn’t even worth the hassle. Stuff like number sheets and accounting guides for what were probably old shops at one point that didn’t make sense or directions to probably the nearest McDonald’s.

It was starting to seem useless until Jean finally decided to venture across the room towards the darkest parts of the room. Which apparently came with a closet.

Inside he found boxes thrown haphazardly around the room, many of which spilling papers across the floor. Some of which were covered in inches of dust while others seemed fairly recently added to the pile. There also wasn’t really a system to how the papers were thrown about from where he was standing at the door. Jean noticed that many boxes faced various ways like they were thrown from all around the room rather than from the direction of the open door. It bugged Jean for a while until he decided to forget the phenomenon and start rummaging through them.

Then the issue of the actual papers rose where many pages were in various stages of being burnt. Some had half the pages missing while others had its corners burnt to a crisp. Others were immediately turned into piles of ash when they’d landed into the tiny closet but it wasn’t just the fact that they were burnt. When Jean had first picked up one of the burned pages, flashes flew against his vision. They weren’t a scrambling of words or letters but rather the image of a large open flame set in an open field. It wasn’t much but as Jean knelt in the pile of papers it had turned into images of an open town square shifting into the inner workings of what could be Hanji’s dingy library. The fire roaring in front of them as Jean stared at their back as they tossed papers on papers into the flames.

The images flashed from scene to scene as Jean moved from the town’s square to Hanji adding to the pile of ash in the hearth of the library. He couldn’t stop his head from spinning and his vision blurred together enough until finally he blacked out completely with the taste of ash and soot on his tongue and the smell of burning hair stinging his nose.

By the time he’d woken up, laying on the papers still in the closet, the morning skit had turned dark outside and Jean hoped to any god willing to listen that he hadn’t missed Marco’s return. Seeing as there wasn’t a change in energy to the house or to the state of the room, he doubted anything had been missed and returned back to collecting the pages together and trying to decode the words. His head was pounding and the scent of burning was ingrained into his mouth to the point where he wasn’t sure if air was supposed to even have a taste to it. But he moved on in the name of progress, hoping something might just pop up.

After a few hours and sifting and tossing the duds of any Jedi mind tricks he possessed, Jean was able to find a few things.

Most of them concerned pages that reiterated Eren’s name. The words ‘abnormal’ and ‘lock and key’ were repeated contenders on many of the pages.

Jean had hoped to maybe find names of the other people that had come to celebrate Marco’s birthday with him but there was no such luck. It was just the Eren Jaeger kid that seemed to make an appearance and whether that meant something on his importance to any of this was beyond Jean’s guessing prowess. Whether the Eren on the pages had anything to do with the Eren that was there some nights ago was a toss in the air and that irritated Jean.

Hopefully the Eren situation was being solved on the other side of the doors to this house.

Or at least he hoped something was being done on Marco’s end. Marco had left Jean promising that he would come back with anything on this house but who’s to say that he even comes back. He could very well throw out the idea that Jean was worth any of his time and energy and had gone back to studying for school or doing whatever people in the present world did with their free time.

Marco was allowed free time to go anywhere. He didn’t have to stay and tie himself down to some 22 year old loser who got himself killed and stuck in a dingy house with horrible natural lighting aesthetics.

But with all the uncertainty that came with trusting Marco, Jean also knew that the connection was there those few hours he got to be near the boy. Marco had even said it himself that something had drawn him to the house and to Jean that was enough to push past the worries for now. He’s look through the pages for however long it took and if Marco were to come in the next few days, he would be somewhat prepared for what was to come.

Whatever Marco asked to do to help Jean, Jean was willing to throw himself into it if it meant he could leave the house forever. Whether that entailed moving on to the afterlife or going straight to that evil demon Master in Utgard.

_“God. What the fuck is my life.”_

Moving on from the pages in front of him, he’d found papers that seemed to belong to a newer set of pages just recently tossed into the heap. The aging yellow of the pages weren’t as excessive and Jean guessed they’d have been in the closet for only a decade or so. A decade where no one had even set foot on the steps of the stairwell let alone had maneuvered into the master bedroom’s tiny closet.

After minutes of staring he’d managed to get a couple of words that seemed to make a bit of sense from the pages. The most important of which resembled the structure of the form he’d found Eren’s name on. The name was different and once the letters had started to align, his complexion. He’d gone fully white and pale and all blood rushed through him and into his ears as all sound of the creaky house turned into white noise.

                Identification Name: Levi Ackerman

                No.: 0000567

                Cause: N/A

                Occupation: Guardian

                Destination: Bidder

The appearance of Levi’s name was more of a shock than a surprise. Jean, of course by now, knew that Levi has been a part of this other world – the afterlife – but seeing his name among the forms tossed into a room was shocking. Does this mean Levi was once a human as well and that he returned to do whatever he does now? Did he come back to manage Scouting Legion and reap the souls of the dead? Or was he given no choice? Jean doubts any of the others, especially Petra would’ve come back to become a tour guide for the newly dead souls. But then what does that explain about the Eren kid?

There was a link between the people Jean could find an association with to this house and the present.

Maybe they had all once come to the house and were killed as well and now they had to submit to the Master-whatsitsname’s will. Maybe Jean’s forms could be in the piles of unreadable pages.

But then how does that explain the fact that Petra had mentioned centuries of repeated history in Utgard? She couldn’t possibly know centuries on centuries of what the world looked like and how things were dealt without seeing it. Not even Hanji’s reports could go that far – unless they had been there to record it themselves.

It all was giving Jean’s headache even more fuel it’s fire across his temples and he focused on rubbing at them with his fingers for a second as he tried to piece something on the more coherent side together.

 _“Okay,”_ he says to himself. Maybe talking out loud would help the cause _. “Levi, Hanji, Erwin and Petra are probably part of the Master’s plan or whatever it is that the shitty demon does. Probably just eats souls for the hell of it if it was really trying to be evil. Eren. Eren was probably a part of the group. But the numbers.”_

Jean grabs for the sheet that Eren’s information had been on. It takes a bit of floundering around the floor to find it and it ended up being stuck the mattresses of the bed. He sits back down in front of the page with Levi’s name on it.

_“The numbers are totally different. Eren’s could mean that his destination or cause occurs much later than Levi’s. But then when the hell did Levi even end up in his destination. Ugh!”_

His fists hit the hardwood floors, papers flying from the momentum of his hands. He fixes his glare across the two pages. _“There’s gotta be some connection between the little shits. Why the fuck would I only be able to read their info sheets? What the fuck are you even doing here, Eren? What is it, Eren?!”_

It’s like ice. His body freezes from a cold breeze that doesn’t even exist in the dark room. The light of the moon from the window offers only so much light and with the curtains drawn there’s no explanation to why the cold washes over Jean. It’s as if his blood had decided to run cold the second the words had left his mouth.

The flash of the fire shoots across his vision but quickly turns to the crowded town square, empty without the smell of soot and remnants of ash on his hands. Faceless bodies running around, some laughing others solemn, it all makes Jean dizzy as he tries to stay focused on what he’s seeing. There’s a point to this.

It’s spurious but Jean can feel the weight of someone pushing against him, running to move past him to get somewhere more important than here. He can feel the energy of the people around him. Urgency. Something’s happening and even without the face’s to look at it, Jean can tell the panic is rising in the young bodies around him.

Someone’s spitting words in his directions and Jean turns to face the direction the garbled words are coming from. The feeling of water and blood rushing through his ears made keeping a straight head difficult and only worsened the headache. But when he turned the mess of black hair was undeniable but before it could fully register it was as if Jean had shut his eyes to the rushing world around him. Everything doused in black the muted sounds dimming until it wasn’t even registering in his ears.

The next time Jean had opened his eyes light was streaming through the crack under the door and Jean was flat on his front, lying over the papers and dripping sweat onto them.

_“Fuck.”_

 

XXXXX

 

It had been two hours since they’d handed Armin the book. Marco’s journal sat safely in his bag on the table of the quaint coffee shop while they sipped their drinks and watched the changes of expression that flew across Armin’s face. It’d been two hours but the guy had managed to enrapture both Marco and Eren into guessing what he was reading to make those faces.

While Marco was showering Eren had finally gotten the courage to make the call although he did say the conversation was rather short, Armin had managed to snag the day from Professor Hanji’s iron grips if only he promised to stay an extra hour the next Monday they met. Eren had felt bad about the arrangement but Armin had brushed it off saying he was totally fine with it for the sake of his friends.

Eren had turned a bit pink at the words but Marco made it through without pointing it out in fear of gaining a bruise on his arm. But once the topic of the book rose after the usual pleasantries it was as if the blood that had rose to color his cheeks vanished, leaving a rather pale in the face Eren sitting at the table staring at the trimmings of the table. His hands were fidgeting and Marco could feel the table vibrating from where it was shaking on the legs of it. Even the coffee could feel the trembles as ripples formed in their coffees and tea (Armin being tired of the coffee Hanji always demanded) and Marco doubted Armin hadn’t noticed.

“Eren. Tell him.” It wasn’t so much a command as a helping guide in the right path of possibly strengthening a friendship and hopefully finding another shoulder to lean on.

Marco and Mikasa would always be there but it took a lot of reminding on the way to the coffee place, Outside the Walls, that Armin wouldn’t be a bother on their tightknit family. He would, in fact, be the opposite of a liability to Eren turning into an asset that could be good for him. All Marco wanted was to help Eren help himself. Eren needed to get past this and talking to a sensible Armin made sense. They were already good enough friends that this being the seal on the deal would help in building any relationship they were to have if they both were committed.

Eren had argued that it could make or break everything. He brought up the what-ifs where Armin would call him pathetic or childish for crying over a hopeless father but Marco had silenced him right away. Telling him Armin wasn’t that kind of a person and no one would ever associate him to such actions ever unless they wanted to pick a fight with Connie who had known Armin longer than any of them had. Armin is a known saint who manages to take on an apparent manic professor with good grace; this would go great.

Stammering wasn’t what Armin had expected once Eren had managed to relax his jittery leg off the table legs. His hands rested on the table top, ghosting close to the book’s binding but not touching it. Breathing in deep and letting it out, he visibly relaxed but the actions had thrown Armin off and he tilted his head in response, watching Eren with concern on his face and glancing towards Marco when minutes passed and Eren was still attempting to catch air into his deprived lungs.

He was going to get lightheaded if he didn’t start talking and Marco elbowed him lightly in the ribs to catch his attention. Eren immediately straightened, remembering the two of them still seated in the seats next to and across from him. He shook his head trying to clear his thoughts and spoke in jagged sentences, rambling at times, trying to fill any silence that could possibly fill the next ten minutes as he told Armin as much as he could. Which amounted to everything from his distant relationship with his dad since he was little to the day he was given the key and expected less distance but in return got a runaway father to crowd his thoughts. He told Armin all about Mikasa and how neither of them had felt enough for their father to stay and how Mikasa had managed to move one but this was _his_ father – his own flesh and blood. How it wouldn’t go away and had manifested in him enough to make him panic id he over thought everything.

He told Armin everything about Marco always being there for him but before he gave Armin the chance to even glance at Marco still sitting next to Eren close enough to grab a hand to relax him, he snapped his head up from the table and looked Armin straight on. His gaze didn’t falter as he told him he wanted – he hoped – Armin would be there for him. He told him how hard it was to let someone in on this side of him and hoped that this could be something for them. Anything to keep them together.

Marco’s eyes had widened at the gravity of Eren’s words. He’d been more resolute as he asked Armin to be there for him for as long as he could than when Marco had seen him last week trying to decide what new TV show he was going to commit to marathoning for the next month. It was a change and Marco felt proud for the steps Eren seemed to be taking.

He was afraid that everything he’d said to the boy would end up with tears and consoling but Marco was adamant about pushing Eren further. He was his best friend and has been for years and it was due time for Eren to leave their enclosed space and build connections with other people. Armin was the perfect person to understand everything and not judge any of them for their past choices and as the little blond guy sat in front of the bother of them, both Marco and Eren felt relief wash over them as Armin listened to shot Eren a tiny, comforting smile every few seconds.

This could work.

After Eren finished rambling, he heaved a sigh and rested his head on the table. Marco chuckles at him and pats him on the shoulder saying, “You did it! Congrats.”

“Shut up,” was the response that came back muffled under the pile of arms hanging over his head and Marco laughed even harder at his idiot friend.

Armin spoke up, quietly but not reserved in demeanor. He knew what he wanted to say and felt comfortable about everything that was just thrown into his face for the past half hour or so. Marco gave him a thankful look as he sipped at his coffee and listened to him. The stuff was better than the lardy aftertaste the one he’s made at home gave and the thought of buying a new coffee machine before the semester started rooted itself as he swirled his drink.

The coffee rippling in his cup, Armin’s comforting words for Eren seemed to drift off s his own thoughts went a different direction. The rippling of the drink led to his thoughts of the future. He was to be graduating from school, moving on to residency at an actual hospital soon. He would be pretty busy, trying to fit in the time to sleep and shower in between running from home to the hospital. It was exciting but terrifying. Anything from now until then could ripple into his future and possibly misalign all of his plans.

He thought about what this whole situation with the house and the books and Jean could mean for how Marco saw things. He knows now that he never really was ‘normal’. He was far from it and it could follow him – those demons. They could manifest in him. The fight to end all of this and find a fix raged a battle in his head whenever he was even offered the time to think. This usually ended with long showers and hurriedly trying to wash away the soap and trying not to watch it and the tears mixed together flow down the drain.

Marco was getting tired. He wasn’t getting old – 21 was definitely not old enough to be having a midlife crisis. A quarter-life crisis, though.

If this demon hunting that would most likely occur within the next few days did anything to ruin Marco’s future-well he didn’t know what he would do. It was another shot in the dark. Another shot to avoid getting destroyed by among others that are still in the dark abyss of his mind.

Going to the house would have consequences and it could affect everything but Marco wouldn’t back down. Not now. Not with how far in deep he’s gotten. Not with Eren, who’s blubbering into his coffee as Armin tries to relax him and get him to talk more, is somehow tied together to the mess and trying to find a way to stop drowning.

The rippling could go on for however long it liked but Marco wouldn’t allow anyone to drown in it if he had anything to do with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the longest mostly because 1)school starts tomorrow 2)I'm gonna be horrible at updating because 5 upperdivision marketing classes and captaining winterguard rehearsals is a lot and I'm lazy 3)I wanted the conspiracy theories from y'all before I explain Eren's book so here' s a lot of stuff in my tiny updates
> 
> So leave me comments and tell me what you think. I've added a new tag if that helps in trying to figure out a theory. But just yell at me. Yelling at me is fine and encouraged. Kudos are super cool and I love seeing people liking and reading this fic. It's really nice. 
> 
> ALSO I'm looking for a possible beta for my [other fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3146726). I want to make it well since it does mean a lot to me and any help with editing and plot ideas as I write would be wonderful. I haven't kept up with writing it but it's an ongoing project on paper that needs more attention than writing this fic does. So if you wanna help, lemme know
> 
> [i have a tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I made a [JeanMarco blog](http://jeanmarcoboat.tumblr.com/)


	11. The Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone shoots coffee like it's a drug and drown themselves in Armin's words as they get tossed into something way bigger than they'd expected.

Armin reads. Marco and Eren stared at their hot coffees wondering why they even bought the stuff in the heat of mid-June. The thought of chugging it down, fueled by anxiety, sat on the cusp of their minds but fortunately minutes passed and they’d drained themselves over time not thought of. It was as if they’d forgotten everything as they watched their friend attempt to get a read on the book in the limited amount of time the small café across from the university allowed.

The key sat on the table, haphazardly thrown out of Eren’s pockets the second they’d met up with Armin. As though the touch of it could burn skin and leave blisters and the sight of it leaving its victims blind, Eren skid it across the tabletop like he was skipping pebbles across open water.

Eren had found the key in a shoebox under his bed just as how he had said it would be. The sight of it sitting amongst the old pictures and ripped pages from a notebook kept him locked in place, staring at the contents until Marco nudged him to his sense. The key was attached to an old leather strap that had belonged to an old pair of boots that were about to be thrown away. He’d wrapped the leather through the hole in the handle and knotted the ends together to make a necklace to avoid losing the thing.

He’d been so happy – so amazed – at the small gift. It was just a key with no home but it had meant so much to him at the time. It was a gift from his father but now it laid haphazardly across the table of the coffee shop between Eren and the book Armin was currently divulged in and it didn’t matter anymore.

Marco knew it didn’t matter to Eren anymore than the week after his father had been gone and hadn’t returned yet. He saw it change from admiration to repulsion when Eren threw the key in the corners of his room in frustration, tears streaming down his face even though he was physically trying his best to calm down. Big boys don’t cry but a broken down kid might just bawl their eyes out if provoked. And, oh, had that been the last straw for Eren.

His father, Grisha, was never the contender for Best Father of the Year. He wouldn’t have even shown up for the nomination ceremony he was so absent in Eren’s life. From what Eren had told Marco, his father would spend a majority of the year on business trips. He was from a long line of physicians and the expectations were passed down onto Eren. From the start Eren was against the notion that he was to go to medical school – that he was meant to attend medical school and key the tradition moving along. He was only eight when he’d told his father this, just having met and befriending Marco, the boy that showed him more than he ever imagined. His father had been upset but hadn’t punished Eren for disobedience. But it was enough to fray the edges on the strings of their relationship.

Every time Eren spoke of a life, grown up, living away from home and doing something other than medicine, the tear would grow. It would grow until a day trip would turn into weekends to week long trips away.

Eren never figured his father had actual work to attend to. All he saw was his father getting upset at his dreams, ignoring him and then leaving for days at a time. He blamed himself for it all.

When Mikasa had come into the picture, an adoption under circumstances that no one but Grisha Jaeger knew of, not much had changed. Her complexion had led to the assumption she’d follow in his footsteps but she had had bigger plans. She suited the world of law and fighting for injustices such as the one that involved her own life and was adamant about her refusal to study what others expected her to. She went against Grisha’s plans and the rift grew even greater. She’d blamed herself those days Eren was beyond upset and threw tantrums at the slightest touch. She did her best to keep him calm but with Marco being the only one who had understood how to calm the boy, she’d felt useless. Her blame turned pace onto Grisha’s action only years after she’d grown up living in a house with Eren and his mother. She’d gotten past it but Eren festered.

Eren despised anything that connected back to Dr. Jaeger but broke down just the same from it all. It was always too much for Eren. His emotions would take over everything and Marco was always called up to help Eren calm down. The boy would latch on at the sight of him and let every vile word flow out of his mouth only to regret letting Marco see and hear it. He was upset but he didn’t like the thought of upsetting his best friend. And then he’d play it off as a spat and they would move on and play rounds of Mario Kart until Marco had to go back home.

The two had grown close together and at a certain point in their friendship it became very close.

They were young and curious. The need to know what it felt like to make someone happy in such a way had tempted fate but excited them both. Failed attempts at making out that led to gigglefests that lasted for hours after and fumbled hands grasping onto fabric, wanting to touch more hadn’t meant much. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything and the moments when it became too much – too much emotion for just a lowly kiss- were quickly broken off as the other tried to regain their thoughts. It only led to a mutual agreement to keep it between themselves and to keep on being friends.

The process of getting it to mean less and less did take longer for Marco and he struggled for a while but he never allowed it to affect their friendship. They would always be the same. Or as much the same as having nearly gotten past sloppy handjobs could get.

Their friendship meant too much and it was times like this when Marco was glad he could still hold Eren’s hand without it meaning anything other than the real kind of love shared between best friends.

As Marco’s mind wandered, it was as though time had sped up and fast forwarded to the moment when Armin closes the final page of writing and lays his head down across his outstretched arms. The sigh that escapes his dry lips is dramatic enough and Eren slides his now lukewarm drunk in sympathy.

“So there’s quite a lot,” Armin mutters into his arms. He lifts his head and props his chin onto his hand, body leaning across the table. The look in his eyes seem wistful in though, his brain still processing everything as it flits across the room at the people behind the café’s bar. “It really is told like a story but it’s definitely not a story from like an alternative universe or something. It’s like they wanted to tell the history of the human species before anything ever recorded in out known history had occurred. Before some sort of apocalypse occurred causing us to basically start over both history and evolution-wise.”

Eren and Marco are wrapped up in what Armin’s saying, rarely remembering the chilling drinks on the table next to the incriminating book leaving tension strewn across Armin’s arms and shoulders. He wants to tell the story, Marco can see it, but there’s something on his face that says the words he chooses need to be chosen wisely before hell blows over in the seat across from him.

Marco knows to give him that time to find his words and although Eren twitches and skitters in his seat, he’s perspective enough to stay seated and wait as patiently as he can.

They both sup at their drinks and Marco wonders if he could get away with ordering another round and watching Armin fiddling with the cover of the book, eyes still stripping apart his surroundings to find something to grasp onto for a start, he takes the chance and stands up patting Eren’s shoulders and taking his empty cup as he walks back to the bar. There’s a chance they might be here for a while and alerting the barista that they weren’t there planning a heist would be respectful. Also the chance to drown in hot chocolate as the dipping sun turned the windows cold was too hard an opportunity to pass up.

“A medium black coffee with two shots of vanilla and stevia, a caramel latte with pumps of chocolate and whipped cream, and a hot chocolate with hella whipped cream please,” Marco says, smiling, at the man behind the counter. He’s just about to reach into his back pocket for his wallet when the voice of the barista halts his movements. He looks up and meets eye to eye with a man much older looking than he probably is but still older than Marco or any of his friends. His hair reminds Marco of Jean except longer and more unruly and he backtracks for a second at the thought but pastes the smile back onto his face before the man can notice the blip.

His voice comes gravelly and deep but the attempts of seeming playful and young is there when he speaks. “Hella whipped cream? So like just extra of it or do you want basically a medium drink in a large cup with the rest filled with the whipping?”

Marco’s grin widens and he nods his head enthusiastically. “That sounds great, yeah uh –Auruo? If it won’t be extra trouble of course.”

“No problem at all. You guys have been here staring at the kid reading that black book for like hours now. It seems to deserve an extra treat on us. For the effort to not maim the guy at least,” the man-Aurou-replies. He writes the drink orders on the cups and charges Marco’s card before his attempts at sincere joy for his job comes crashing down as his smile turns bloody – tongue stuck between his teeth and threatening to bleed. He hurriedly sticks his hands under his jaw as Marco stares on in fear. The barista making drinks doesn’t pay any mind to the accident as if it’s happened before and it bewilders Marco more as Auruo waves is off at Marco. “Don’t worry,” he nearly mumbles over his tongue still sticking out of his mouth. “It happens sometimes when I talk too much. Your drinks will be finished off at the end of the counter. Have a nice day!”

Marco nods his head and sticks his card back into his small leather wallet and back into his pocket and walks towards the end of the bar, glancing back at the strange man dabbing napkins against his tongue leaving the guy to his issue. Marco stands at the bar, waiting and watching as the guy behind the counter stands in front of the machine whirling away and makes their drinks. He turns back to his friends for a second, Eren whispering to Armin, and he smiles to himself.

 _“They’re going to end up just fine,”_ he thinks to himself. He keeps watching as Eren places a comforting hand across the table over the blond boy’s and Marco turns back to the bar giving them some sort of privacy that could be allowed in such a public place. The little shop wasn’t busy, having been located in the college side of town had perks when it was still summer.

It’s quiet over the roar of the espresso machine drowning out most of the noise in the café, but Marco barely makes out the words of the guy behind the large machine. “So are you all in a thing or something?” he asks, nodding his head towards the table the three of them had taken by the wide window. Marco blanches at the man. He looks to be old but probably ranged around the age of the Auruo guy, his blond hair long enough to affix into a small ponytail yet longer than Armin’s. The hair on his chin doesn’t suit his appearance as a barista, Marco decides, but a job’s a job.

“Excuse, me?” he responds.

“Just you guys seem cozy over there not even saying a word. That’s a thing even people who’ve dated for years can’t even manage, trust me. Didn’t mean to assume, though,” he says, stepping away from the heating machine as the milk simmers. Marco stares at the guy – his nametag reading “Erd” unless that was another typo or joke from the entire store itself – and then down at the counter separating them both. The guy has both arms folded across his chest, not showing judgment, yet managing just the same to make Marco uncomfortable at the notion.

He feels his cheeks deepen in color as he chances a glance towards his friends again. “We’re friends, yeah. But I’m not involved with whatever mess they’re in,” he spills out unconsciously. He quickly claps a hand over his mouth, hoping his voice hadn’t sounded as bitter as the words but he quickly relaxes significantly when he looks up and finds Erd laughing and grabbing a couple of the to-go cups.

“Well whatever it is, keep those two protected. The world’s a shitty place and it gets shittier every day the problem isn’t fixed. Wouldn’t want lover boys over there falling into a pit of doom now wouldn’t we? Here’s your drinks and have a nice night.” He slides the cups across the counter and walks away towards a fidgeting Auruo, without any halt in his step, before Marco is even given the chance to process his strange words.

He walks away, drinks in hand, back towards the others, the words still bouncing against his skull as he slides the cups towards his friends. _“What the heck would a pit of doom even look like?”_ he thinks to himself. He’s brought out of his thoughts when Eren speaks up directed at a much calmer Armin. He still seems tensed but his eyes flit around less and Marco knows he’s clear-headed and his thoughts are organized enough now to tell a coherent-enough story. Or history lesson. Or whatever the book was.

“We’re ready, Armin. Whenever you are, just go ahead.”

Armin breathes in his drink and after smacking his lips and thanking Marco it’s as if the world outside their little 3x3 foot table dissolves into thick soup – nothing able to swim into the vicinity let alone into their occupied ears.

 

XXXXX

 

On that day, mankind received a grim reminder of the humiliation of being trapped inside a cage. We lived in fear of Titans and were disgraced to live in these cages we called walls. Days dragged on as people of authority lived with little care for protecting the people and the people themselves forgot the appeal of leaving the cage. They didn’t understand the appeal of open land and the chance to see open water.

The fall of the walls, actions unforeseen by an even more unexpected rival had become an awakening that shook the human on its haunches. Humanity was suddenly reminded that day of the terror of being at the mercy of their humiliation of being trapped.

Over a century ago, beings that prey on humans suddenly appeared. Their absolutely overwhelming strength quickly pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. The surviving humans constructed three walls: Maria, Rose, and Sina, which brought them a century of peace. Divisions of the land’s fighting force were divided to protect the people from further deaths. One of which included the highly-ridiculed Scouting Legion. They lived out of the walls, away from most of humanity, their main goal to find the solution to a century’s worth of civilian repression.

Children were trained from a young age to fight the war against titans and the day the walls finally met their fall became the start of a different world.

Titan shifter were discovered. Humans capable of melding their forms and minds into larger than life monsters became both an ally and an enemy to the human race. One of which included the first-known Titan Shifter with a name withdrawn from history.

The history of this Titan Shifter was violent and riddled with answers and ultimately it was sacrifices from him that left a world apart from their own. The only known connection found in the form of a key, small with a square handle that linked through leather straps to hook around the neck. Past, definitely unknown, the link to the world of the titans and to the new world were found in the grips of the young boy with unreal powers.

It is a story of a key that could open the cages that restricted humanity but instead had released them into their own extinction and revival as another.

Years of searching for the door that opened a brighter world left many dead – many of them children and well-respected veterans of way. It involved sacrifices and retribution to the sinners that kept the world under a black light – only showing the fabricated peace when it worked to their own personal advantage. But even with the opportunity for better at the tips of their fingers, they’d failed and the world had gone to ruins.

The door was found – deep in the caverns of a ruined town Shiganshina – and behind it they found a place of despair and hatred. Ruled by the monster referred to only as the Master, origins of the Titan’s appearance revealed themselves. Searching through the labyrinths of hell, they’d found the effects of the Titan Way – old friends chained to the other world, forced to serve and deliver to the one all. It was a toxic environment that threatened sicknesses in their small surviving group of soldiers bother physical and mental. Insanity threatened to overwhelm many as they roamed the tar lands. They needed to find solutions to their demeaning lives. They needed to sacrifice and deal with the leader of such an unearthly world.

Commanders led them to the rounds of a city within the world. A place called Utgard – the home of the one they searched for. But hopes to speak with the monster king fell apart when they ran into the vicinity of intelligence.

An old friend/soldier/commander that once upon a time ran the history books and scientific research on the titans for another world had managed to pass along the dealings to the other side. This person – spirit or entity – spoke of consequences if a deal were the route they truly went. The deal would have its repercussions that if not met, could lead to total annihilation. An outcome that was more likely than anything.

Arguments and conferenced held the soldiers under the world behind the basement door, for years as the war continued to rage on above them. Final details needed to be made and the Titan Shifter took the responsibility upon himself to launch himself into the warzone across the city.

Details of what was found in the chambers of the monster king’s home were lost from records – presumably on purpose to keep the horrors to the imagination of those that dared to find out. But in the end, a deal had been made.

The titans would leave if in return a sacrifice was given for the sake of eternal peace. The life given would need to be of excellent quality, a person that had value and taste to them. The titans would be take care of, manifesting to the other world over time and the humans would be able to live their lives above with the cage doors forever taken down.

The agreement had been signed and the first sacrifice given by the Titan Shifter himself. The world drowning around him as his dreams of seeing the large body of water were finally fulfilled and his breath slowly left his body into the air around the dark chambers.

For years after, the world moved on, walls were destroyed and the government began anew under the guidance of the true ruler. But the fall of an era was inevitable as the black light over the people shattered and the repercussions of forgetting old promises showed themselves.

The world fell to ruins and broken promises created destruction as the Master deemed the world of the humans unworthy of his favors and sympathy. The people were destroyed, their impacts on the Earth above destroyed and forgotten. Few ruins remained of the world unknown to any written history that had been destroyed centuries ago.

Life began again. The effects of Master remained – none knowing the cause or reason for yearly disappearances across multiple gateways to the other world across the human world. The treaty between the humans and titans would remain for as long as the humans themselves were unknowing and followed the laws of the higher being. Master received his payments through bidders left behind from the Titan War. A war never studied in history lessons. The most important of those people too precious and influential to be allowed the one short life they were given. They would have more use than any normal man.

Many were kept to work under the eyes of the Master; others were sent away for another purpose that held them in place for centuries, waiting for a new, more relevant purpose. The few were taken as sacrifice, forced to away their fate within arm’s reach for their characters held no fault other than being of the human race.

The key had opened the cage and welcomed the people to a new world created from the ashes of the dead.

 

XXXXX

 

Time moved around them – the sky turning dark as the summer sun fell below the horizon. The cold radiating from the windows were unrecognized and forgotten as Armin told the story the book offered. He spoke and chose his words as a lecturer would in a university theater and unlike the numerous classes Marco had so far attended and Eren had sometimes joined on to loiter in the back waiting for his friends to get out, the two of them were enraptured by his script. Time moved on and by the point Armin was finished explaining the barebones of his findings, the two others didn’t what to do with the information or at what point they’d finished their drinks and had gripped onto empty cups.

“And that’s basically the jist of it all,” Armin says.

“So the world,” Eren says slowly, annunciating his words trying to process them as he speaks along with the flow of his thoughts. “It’s just ruled by some God that decides when it wants to destroy all of humanity?”

Marco’s through come tumbling from his mouth straight after Eren silences, his thoughts pacing just as fast as the other boy’s. “And there are people from another time that were what – reincarnated to this world?”

“And large, man-eating monster titans are a thing that some walls were capable of keeping out until some weird shit ruined it all?

“And some of the reincarnated work for this leader and others are sacrificed.”

“The workers were like slaves that stayed stuck behind their own walls in hell forever”

“And the key opened a basement door that led to the hell of all hells.”

“Like a fucking portal?!”

Armin sits back in his seat and waits for the rush of questions to end.

When the two have tired themselves and their brains out enough, he sits back up, hands reaching for his half empty coffee cup, taking a sip before speaking. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“And the key,” Eren starts. His hands are sweaty and as he tries to pick up the metal object left thrown across the table, the glint of the light catches on its edges as it falls back against the tabletop. Eren’s nerves are killing his resolve and the words stammer out of his mouth even with the breathe he takes prior to calm down his racing heart. “Th-the key is the same fr-from the story then? The key th-that opened the gates of he-hell.”

Armin straightens up a bit from where he had slouched in his seat after taking a sip of his drink. He nods his head, solemnly and smacks his lips trying to think of something to say. Marco sits there, watching as the two interact and grab meaning from something. From nothing.

He tries, himself. To understand what the key and story Armin told has anything to do with his own life – with Jean’s life – but all that he can see as his mind races away from him, are the eyes so cold and distant that could rip a soul to shreds at the snap of bloody fingers if he so much as breathed wrong. The demons of his childhood, the drawings that he could never place a name onto suddenly had a title. A name that centuries of buried history revealed itself here in some dingy coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, California.

A Master of some other-worldly hell that once upon a time destroyed all of mankind and now revolved itself around Marco’s life, turning the tides without any chance for Marco to remove himself from its grasp.

He and everyone else were stuck under an unknown force that could unleash itself on the slightest whim and if the rising sense of dread that filled Marco every day since he’d found Jean in that horrible house was anything to go by, the next apocalypse wasn’t so far a concept to see occurring. Jean’s passing into the other side and Marco’s entire existence and relationships with the dark world couldn’t be coincidental. If anything the link was stronger than anything Marco had imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late and so short I'm so sorry. School started and work schedules left me with little sleep and I'm just making excuses. Inspiration to keep writing was also dismal and I ended up writing shit oneshots to keep myself sane during lecture which you should totally check out if you want ya know *wink wink*
> 
> Anyway, I'll try to bring the next chapter sooner than this one but I might just let everyone fester in what the fuck I just threw at you guys. I'm still pressing out the wrinkles in the whole Utgard/Titans world and working it into the modern setting so that's actually a really fun process. Also if you hate the way I've turned the canon universe into some weird hell situation I guess I'm sorry ??? If it helps, I usually just dissociate my little basement story from canon to not ruin anything for me but yeah. 
> 
> You can yell at me if you want. I actually like it [that sounded really masochistic wtf] 
> 
> OKAY BYE I LOVE YOU ALL 
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	12. Building Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Even paradise could become a prison if one had enough time to take notice of the walls.”
> 
> Walls are built and taken down as stories tell them of a world where walls were an inconvenient existence that kept the people alive

They leave immediately after that. The eyes flicking around towards their small table leave them unsettled and antsy. The three of them gather their things – Marco holds the small book and keeps it away from Armin’s fidgeting hands while Eren hooks the chain on the small, metallic key around his neck. Their grips tight on their items, all three of them turn to leave the small café into the dark night. A quick glance back towards the inner workings of the café and Marco locks eyes with a pair of brown eyes. Erd’s concentration never faltering and Marco can feel it even as he turns back towards the others walking out the door.

They can’t trust anyone anymore. Trost could now be labeled as the home of some demon’s portal back to hell and the people lining up on the Earth’s surface may have their own ties back to the other side. It was starting to become a game of Gods and Demons and Marco was having a hard time discerning the two. This Master acted and committed deeds that resembled the wrath of a God – of a higher being. But it also brought destruction unlike any other and could that even compare to the saintly portrayed all humans had grown to look up to. This wasn’t the Jesus Christ Marco remembered hearing about on the school playgrounds in elementary school from the fear-mongering Christian kids and it still wasn’t the description akin to the Devil’s he’d listened to in high school bleachers during the nights spent smoking whatever friends had decided to pass around. There was no mold to go off of and it was getting to be infuriating. Nothing fits which means the answers to his questions would just be harder and harder to find. With no background to fall back on, it felt like Marco was floundering in a sea of unknown to whether this Master was there for the good of humanity or if he sought out that moment to cause greater destruction for the sake of perfectly-timed destruction. A destruction that might be coming soon was what the barista had said.

Walking out of the café and past the large bay windows, Marco was able to sneak the last glance back inside and the air nearly knocks out of him. Two pairs of eyes lock onto their small group as they continue walking, Eren and Armin clueless to the glares, but Marco can feel the darkness that crashes over and across his body. His body shivers and the tingling feeling that crawls up his spine leaves him almost curling in on himself. He doesn’t know the circumstances or their pasts but Marco does know that the chill that mixes with the overheated skin on his person tells him that those eyes looking back at him have lived a life before now. That they have seen years and decades and centuries in this world – both trying to find a way out just as much as he’d seen in the tawny eyes from Jean. They were like Jean. Stolen souls locked away by a higher entity that had a firm grip that wouldn’t give any signs of loosening.

Marco pauses and Eren seems to catch the change behind him as he turns around to look back at him. “Marco?”

His eyes are still locked onto the faces on the other side of the glass. The two faces behind the bar of a near-empty café have fallen just the slightest and grave looks and pain in their eyes carve themselves into Marco’s vision. Erd and Aurou are pawns in some game that they’d never asked to be brought into and it’s like being slammed by a truck when the thought that any of them could be living the same life, replayed for eternity until the next fall were to come. A fall Erd himself had said to inevitably make an appearance soon.

“Marco what’s wrong?”

Marco’s head snaps back to Eren and he sees it in them to. Both of them. Armin and Eren both have the swimming darkness that radiates a centuries worth of pain and it doesn’t make sense. He’s sure if his friends were a part of some centuries old plan, resurrected from the dead, they would have shown signs – they would have told him before the chance for Marco to find it clouding his vision. Suddenly hearing the story of this Master had unlocked the perception to see dark auras in everyone he sees and it’s not what he wanted. He never asked to be able to see these things and Marco knows the others, his friends in front of him, can’t see what he sees otherwise they would be freaking out just the same. So why can he?

Why is there suddenly a filter on his vision where the pits of dark unknowns come out stronger than the colors of everyone’s eyes? Why is it like this filter had never even been gone? Like it had always been there and had stayed hidden under an ignorance that was his life just a week ago.

“I-I’m fine. I just think that um…shit, Eren. Something’s wrong,” he blurts out and it’s like he’s released a fountain of words as he loses his breath over his brain trying to keep up with the way his mouth goes off. “Erd and Aurou – uh, the baristas – they. I think they’re part of this. Like part of the whole thing the book talks about. Their eyes are – your eyes too and-” Eren cuts him off before his words turn into deep heavy breathes that overwhelm his head. His words and thoughts come out stuttered and messy and it’s hard to say it all but he needs to keep going. They need to know but Marco doesn’t know how to relax his racing pulse.

“What are you trying to say, Marco? Who the hell cares about the baristas?”

“They’re part of this. They work or at least are puppets under this Master thing. I can see it in their faces. Their eyes. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like this darkness that I remember seeing in my nightmares and in the corners of the room and it’s behind their eyes. And I-I can see it behind yours too, Eren.”

“Me?”

“And Armin. It’s in both of your eyes and I don’t know what it means but it’s fucking up everything and I need it to go away.” Marco latches his  shaky hands into the roots of his hair and pulls at the ends hard as he tries to clear his mind. He knows it won’t help anything, the pulling, but the feeling of pain from his roots resisting the pressure brings him down from his mental high and centers him down on his feet just the slightest.

Eren’s hands fly up to meet his and the warmth of them relaxes his fingers just the slightest but enough to pull each one away from his throbbing scalp. His hands remain in Eren’s as Eren hold them between their cooling bodies under the open, night sky and Marco tries to hold himself long enough to erase the dizziness threatening to topple him over. He steadies himself with Eren as his anchor. His dumb, green-eyed best friend with a new dark haze around his irises that scares Marco but keeps his latched on to avoid losing his thoroughly in the darkness. If he stays attached long enough, maybe the darkness would go away and everything would be fine. He won’t let Eren get away from him if he could fight it and whatever handle he has on this other world didn’t have to matter. If what Erd said rang true, there must be something that could fix whatever problem existed. No one would be falling into a pit of doom anytime soon.

“Marco, listen. We found out a lot today, yeah? It’s a shit ton of information to take in in such a short amount of time and it’s gonna fuck you up because god, man, we’re somehow involved in all of it but you need to remember: everything will be fine. We’ll go and see Jean tomorrow and we can talk to him then and find out more. Sasha and Connie are down to come and help too even though they haven’t found anything but we can catch them up on the way there and everything will air itself out after Jean opens his rude ass mouth and tells us anything he’s found, yeah? We’re fine, Marco. Armin and I are still here and any weird things you see is just your mind playing games and you don’t need to worry so much.”

“But your eyes. There’s darkness and I can see it. Why the how the hell could my brain even think up of something like that?”

“Like I have any idea, Bodt. Maybe we’re some weird reincarnation or some shit and something might’ve triggered something and now you can see weird, freaky auras. But you and I both know that neither of us are any demon’s minions and we’re still the same nerd you love. Right?”

Marco sniffles and after pulling hand away from Eren’s grip he wipes the short sleeve of his shirt across his face as Eren makes a disgusted face. He laughs to himself and nods his head at Eren’s shorter form. Turning his gaze towards the short blond, Marco does the same and smiles back at the one coming from Armin. “Right.”

Accepting his answer for the time being, Eren releases his hold around Marco’s sweaty wrist, gently tugging him in the direction of Armin’s place, and continuous walking as his friends follow in his wake.

As Eren walks on, leading their group, with a bit of a pep in his step, Marco forgets his thoughts of the café’s baristas for a second and is instead brought down from his worrying as Armin sidles up to walk beside him and starts making light conversation.

They continue walking under the dark sky as they get closer and closer to Armin’s down. The lights of the streets create the warm, hazy, orange glow that hovers itself over the horizons that reveal itself over the blocks and it keeps their path lit but also restricts anything else. They hide the stars – the collection of constellations – and as Marco looks up from the slick concrete pavement of the city block, he wonders of a place where the artificial lights disappeared and allowed the constellations to shine against a deep darkness. He thought of a place where the lights of something much bigger than them could light even the darkest corners of the world. And as they said their farewells to Armin at the door of the dorm’s entrance, Marco turned around from his friends’ whispered words and wondered if there could be a light that could destroy the darkness hidden beneath the thin film over emotional eyes. That darkness he saw in Eren’s eyes; was there a light that existed that could light the darkness and remove it altogether? Was there something that could remove the darkness from Erd and Aurou’s vision? What about Jean? There had to be some form of light and maybe that was what Marco’s job was. This new sight into people’s eyes, being able to see the darkness, entailed a responsibility to find what it was that could shine itself into its depths.

As Eren comes to stand next to Marco again, Marco can see it. The small amount of darkness he’s seen seeping away into a light shade and as the sound of a door shitting hits his ears, he gazes up at the large building in front of them and smiles. That’s one set of constellations he doesn’t need to worry about looking for.

 

XXXXX

 

They stumble into the apartment about twenty minutes later and find themselves looking down at Mikasa. The clock hung up across the hallway shows that it’s only a little over 9 P.M. but the look on her face worries them both that they’ve actually been caught coming home past midnight.

“Mikasa-” Eren starts.

She cuts him off before he’s able to give any say on where they’ve been all afternoon.

They’d been out for hours now and it probably didn’t look good that Marco seemed still to be slightly on edge and Eren was dancing on his tiptoes around him to keep down their high off of the items still held in Marco’s hand and hung around Eren’s nick. Everything was different now, no matter anything that Eren said, and Mikasa seemed able to sniff it out the second they’d walked into the room.

“What did Armin say?” she asks. Eren and Marco flinch and they realize neither of them had really told Mikasa their reason to go on and talk to Armin. She doesn’t know about the book. About Eren’s cause for the panic attack. Why he’d really stopped breathing for those momentary minutes last night as Mikasa slept. Why Eren was wearing the-

“Why is dad’s key around your neck? I thought you left that back at home.”

Eren freezes and seeing as he might not be much use over the panic that might be bubbling up from remembering the reason he’d even had the damn key, Marco jumps in and drags Eren across the room and sits him down next to him across from the raven-haired girl.

“We found out a lot of things and all of it sounds weird but it’s important and-”

Marco pauses. The darkness. It’s here. Her dark, black eyes stare back at Marco, confused as his pause but behind the already dark pupils he can see it. A darker haze that looks as though it’s clawing its way out from within her. Like the slightest push or motivation could release the darkness and overwhelm her entire pupil with a snap of fingers that even she couldn’t fend off. She wouldn’t be able to fight it no matter how many black belts she managed to hold. “-and it’s fucked up, Mikasa. It’s so fucked up and I don’t know how to even tell you how it’s fucking me up but you need to know and just-” He glances at Eren and receives a knowing nod back in return and with that he’s able to relax into his seat, sliding back and leaning his head far enough to rest it and lean it towards Eren as he listens to his best friend explain everything Armin had told them. He does it more efficiently and clearer than Marco could have ever attempted and Marco’s grateful as he lets Eren’s words wash over him and his own distracted thoughts.

He talks for over an hour the clock striking 10 P.M. long ago; answering questions that arise between the long stares Mikasa gives in Marco’s direction. Her thoughts are probably racing as fast as Marco’s and he’s glad he’s not alone in trying to figure out this fuckery. As Eren goes on and on, her glances at him slow but when they do turn, there’s a sympathy behind furrowed brows and Marco gives back a slanted grimace in return as her darker than dark gaze hits him at every mention of the “Master”. She’s making the connections. You can see it in the way the darkness seems to gleam behind her eyes a she keeps listening.

“We’re going tomorrow,” her voice cuts into Marco’s thoughts. He’d dozed off and had stopped listening to Eren’s words, choosing, rather, to just focus on his intonation and the melody in his voice to try to forget the tension building in his shoulders as the words that fell out of the green-eyed boy’s mouth hit farther than any world-record home run. He watches Mikasa’s face now as she talks at the two of them, gaze directed mostly at Eren. “We’ll talk to Jean and we’ll see what we can do to get rid of the darkness alright?” Her gaze doesn’t falter from Eren and Marco wonders if he can see the ways that even Eren is falling apart from all of this. Marco might be at the heart of all of this but Eren’s small connection to the metal hanging from his neck weighed heavy on his shoulders as well and the physical effects of it were starting to make an appearance as the night wore on.

Marco nods his head as Mikasa talks and suddenly he freezes. They know about the darkness, sure, but Erd’s words. Had he told them anything about that? He couldn’t remember. “Th-there’s more. One of the baristas. Back at the café. He’d said something was coming. He’d said something about the world turning to shit every day the problem wasn’t solved and I’m pretty sure he was referring to something bigger than the stupid filter my eyes have adopted. He talked about how we wouldn’t want Eren or anyone else falling into a ‘pit of doom’ which I’m thinking he now meant more metaphorically than anything but still. I-I don’t know what he was talking about but it might be more than just nothing.”

Eren’s staring at his profile – the gaze is searing and as Marco turns to look at him, the wide-eyed horror on his face throws him off balance as much as his own words must have hit Eren and he glances back at Mikasa. Eren speaks up, voice now a softer whisper compared to the tone he’d elected while talking to Mikasa. “The world’s turning to shit? What does that even mean?”

Marco shrugs his shoulder and lets his hands fall between his thighs as he leans forward. “I told you. I have no idea. That’s all he said and then he sent me away with the drinks and that was it.”

The three of them stare at each other, all trains of thoughts derailed long ago as they scrounge for something to say.

Eren’s voice cuts through the intermediary silence again as Mikasa and Marco shoot their gazes over to him. It’s sharper now, more volatile than reasoning and it hitches just the slightest at the back of his throat enough to hit Marco with misplaced guilt. “That’s fucked up. Why the fuck would he tell you that? Why the – hm. This is so stupid.” He stands up, his sneakers hitting their dusty, living room throw rug as he starts pacing in front of the coffee table. “Why is Marco this great missing jigsaw puzzle that’s in to so deep he gets these cryptic messages from strange, old baristas telling him the next great Coming is on its way like it’s nothing?”

“Eren relax. You sound ridiculous,” Mikasa quietly says. Her voice had never reached over a certain resonance and Marco can’t think of a single moment in the years he’s known the woman where it’s even edged its way towards that height. But the strain that Marco can hear in her tone tells him that she may just be on about the cusps of cracking. On the very edge of losing it herself and it breaks Marco even more and that misplaced guilt finds its home as he watches his friends fight something so unknown to them all with no ulterior motive other than for Marco’s sake.

“ _This_ is ridiculous, Mikasa. Who’s to say that the second we get to that house, we’ll be sucked into whatever hell Jean’s been stuck in for the past two decades? Who’s to say this asshole Master of some human-thirsting titan world won’t take us as their little minions or maybe even as dinner?”

Marco’s attention snaps as he stares at Eren. His voice threatens to shake as he takes a breath of air but he pushes against that wall standing in front of him as he rounds on Eren with enough force to scare even him. It’s the fire he’s seen just a few days ago back in the pit of his stomach and he knows he needs to shut his mouth before he says the worst but it’s a fire that can’t be doused so early in the game and it floods its way out of his throat and lights itself in front of any already dazed Eren. “So are you backing out them? Are you done with trying to help or playing ‘this game’, Eren?”

“M-Marco. That’s not fair. You know I’m here to help it’s just this is all-”

“-it’s a lot. I know. I never asked to be thrown into this stupid game either but here we are, right? You don’t need to be here if you don’t want to, Eren. You can leave. If it’s just too much and you don’t want to go tomorrow then don’t. I can go by myself. It is my problem after all. I’m the one that sees the ghosts and dead spirits and all you have to worry about is the key around you neck. You focus on that and I’ll figure out my own life.”

At some point during his poorly-given speech, Marco had stood on his feet to square his shoulders across their small wooden table separating him from Eren. Now, with a the stone wall falling behind as he walks through the hole he’d created to get his words from burning a hole through his stomach it’s like he can feel it rebuilding itself, stronger and thicker than before as he walks away from his friends. He can feel it building a blockade between Eren and as he walks through their bedroom doorway he hopes Eren is resilient enough to knock it down before it seals itself. Everything that had left his mouth was just wrong and Marco knew it was but there wasn’t a fight left in him to stop his momentum from releasing it all. Releasing it all and from crashing against the edge of his mattress, toppling him forward onto his stomach. He groans into his comforter, inhaling his own scent mixed with the faint smell of Eren’s body who’d obviously spent way too much time rolling around the entire room like a lost puppy rather than staying on his side. The thought made him groan even louder and for a second he hopes that the boy across their small apartment could hear him bitching and moaning not even a minute after arguing. His friend is an idiot, yes, but he means well. Always had and Marco knows – always will.

Like a damn near replica of Miley Cyrus wrecking ball through a cinder block wall, Eren’s footsteps register under the muffled sounds coming through the comforter in Marco’s face and the weight of a body landing harsh on his backside certainly brings the boy to the forefront of this attention. Eren’s wiggling digs a bony ass into Marco’s back and after a bit of wiggling himself, Marco’s able to escape a majority of the dead weight on his lower back. Instead, the weight transfers all right onto his own ass and Marco groans even more violently in anger at the laughing boy above him. “Eren, get off. I’m supposed to be upset,” he says less seriously than just a minute ago.

Eren chuckles. “Your little hissy fit don’t work on any of us anymore Marco. Give it up. We know you didn’t mean any of what you said and _I_ know _you_ know how much I’m gonna stay next to your pathetic side while we go in and fight demons like a couple of ghostbusters.”

“Eren-”

“I know. You’re scared. I’m scared too and that’s probably why I said that shit. Because I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t need to lose anyone especially my best friend.” He laughs off his emotional words and with a quick jump, he’s got Marco laughing alongside him as they settle to sitting on the bed like normal people.

They sit there for a while, waiting for the other to say something. The sound of Mikasa’s bedroom door shutting at some point lifts their heads and they know that if she deems it fit to move on and go to bed to leave them to talk, everything would work out at the end. If there would’ve been things bigger than their little worries she would’ve been in there yelling and pulling at their ears and the reassurance that she wasn’t there to do so made them chuckle.

“We should get to bed,” Eren says, voice still light from laughing. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow. And we should be rested for when the need to fight arises.”

“Yeah. And I’m vaguely sure that I actually haven’t slept in over 24 hours so-”

“Marco! It’s nap time. Now shut up.” And with a flop, Eren’s straddled himself across rumpled sheets, feet sticking off the edges and neither of them have the energy to bother with their outer layer of clothes. Marco lays down next to him and within a few minutes, the sound of them snoring echoes through the room – deepening any cracks in the walls they might’ve built over the day.

 

XXXXX

 

The sound of shrieking laughs was enough to pull Jean’s mind back to the situation at hand. At some point he’d gotten himself surrounded by a barrage of papers that made little to no sense other than the vague mentions of Eren and Levi he’d found days ago. Days? Or has it been weeks? What fucking month even was it anymore?

How long has it been since Marco?

Sitting on the floor of a locked room for no reason other than not being able to leave wasn’t how he’d wanted to be found. Or at least he’s would’ve liked to be able to go down and figure out himself who the loud conversations outside belonged to.

He stood up from his paper fort and with careful steps, Jean made his way towards the dusty window. The grime on the glass from years of weathering down made it difficult to see anything distant but what he could make out were the shaped outlines of six people. Six people whose heights resembled the six that he remembers so recently. There’s a tiny bit of excitement that flutters itself in his stomach as he sees them all trundling up the overgrown path to the house, hands full of overnight supplies and it takes everything within Jean to internalize the smile that wants to shine out. He was getting excited over people that wouldn’t really be classified as friends. Not when the only person he’d even talked to directly was just the tall brunet tripping over his own feet and the loose gravel of the pathway that couldn’t even be considered a direct conversation. The hype building inside him was misplaced and Jean resigned the feeling as emerging from anticipation of any news or findings. Not because Marco looked nice in that stupid sea green cardigan

His hands grip hard onto the windowsill as he watches the bodies disappear under the porch’s wooden awning. The squeaking of the front door’s hinges after decades of minimal use travels up the stairs and resonates inside the room through the tiny crack under the door. His feel move him forward, trancelike, and he steps on and over the flyaway papers and empty boxes tumbling outside of the closet and soon finds himself standing in front of the large, wooden door, still locked from the outside world. His hands rest against the wood grain, lighter than the actions before that left long gashes and splinters a few days ago and he rests his head on the weight of the wall.

Trembling hands find the cool metal of a rusty doorknob and with a shaky breathe uncharacteristic to any story-based ghost Jean had grown up listening about years ago. The hope for change, for better things, fill Jean’s head and he realizes he’s somehow come to associate the presence of a familiar yet distant face to better luck but that realization halts itself as he turns his wrist, wrapped in the momentum of needing to get closer, his grip tight on the metal that doesn’t budge and in return rather lets out a low creak under the force.

The voices that Jean can hear seem to have converged in their space – the living room – air probably full of the dust clouds that haven’t been stirred up in days or weeks. It was still hard to tell. They’re down there, their belongings fluttered about the room similar to the state of the room Jean’s unable to escape. The four walls leaving him locked in place and time that seem to, second by second, shrink in dimension and crushing Jean into his little box. He’s already dead. Asphyxiation would be impossible and the worst that could happen would be the reminder Petra had given him long ago – bodies kept close for the time when he needs it most – and the panic he’d tried to keep inside him, repressed, alongside the fluttering in his stomach chokes itself out of his throat and claws its way leaving Jean scarred from the inside-out. The panic rising out of him and clouding itself over his entire being that he can’t seem to escape from no matter how much he swats it away.

His hands banging against the grain of wood thumbs itself on the edge of his senses but it’s a sound more new and uncertain that stills his body and slows down his heavy breathing just the slightest. It echoes up the floor separating the two of them again and Jean leans his body onto the door heavily as tries to concentrate on the slight lilt in tone and airiness that manages to reach him. The wood presses into his body, digging itself into his shoulders and the splinters he’s made just days ago don’t seem to matter over the fact that Marco’s voice was managing to reach him and it was all he needed to calm down a racing heart. The sound is clouded but the energy behind the soft sounds of his name coming from Marco roots him and anchors his own self and he concentrates on the voice guiding his actions through layers of wood.

He hears the shouts from, he guesses, the brunette girl with the ponytail and huge appetite (Sasha?) and knows that his little attempt of communication from a distant must be working. His mind – energy – attempts to maintain that focus on hands he’s familiar with as spells out what he want (what he needs) to say.

S-T-U-C-K

Hopefully the fact that Marco wouldn’t be able to find any parts of his shimmery apparition and his explanation would alert the people down in the living room of his tiny situation. Or at least make them wonder. He hears the sharp intonation of a guy’s voice and the name, printed onto yellowing paper, flashes across his eyes as Jean listens to him talk, somehow directed towards Jean.

“Yeah we know you’re stuck, dude. It’s why we’re back here.”

Marco’s voice cuts, in flowing behind Eren’s. “What Eren means is that – well – we’re back to help you figure this out. And um, we found some things that are kinda freaky and-” He releases a breath he’d been holding in and it’s like Jean can feel it rippling through the room and reaching him personally. “Jean, where are you? I know you can hear us but I-I can’t see you and you feel distant.”

Jean’s just near the chance to get his words to come across the Ouija board when his brain just seems to stop working. It’s a wave over the entire house. A rippling that levels itself through the musty rooms full of dust and lazy spiders.

Blackness seeps its way and snaps at Jean’s vision as he tries to focus himself on the conversation outside the room. The energy spikes across the wooden floor and it feels like a true California earthquake decided to concentrate itself inside the house – the epicenter being the far corner of the room – as Jean rocks on the backs of his feel trying to steady himself. The weight of the air around him, still full of that opened bottle of anxiety and apprehension, builds in pressure and leave Jean’s ears ringing under the strain and he can feel it sapping itself out of his body as the voices start to fade to a normal, distant volume.

The energy that was used to build that bridge of connection to Jean was being manipulated and Jean could feel its path of redirection as his back hit the door’s frame and his leg gave out under him to slide his shirt up his back as he slid down to rock on the heels of his shoes.

It was rolling through and off of him in waves, breathing labored as he tried to catch a bubble of fresh air over the circulating stench of moldy, rotten air. The atmosphere mixing with the smell of copper and metal and it’s like Jean can taste and feel the flow of fresh blood on his tongue. He flounders around for a second, spitting up nothing on the cold, hard ground when a sound similar to the click of a lock or a flick of a switch stops everything in motion. The room is silent besides the sounds of Jean’s heaving breathes and it’s dark. Insanely darker than the darkness he’d been locked in for the past week or so. The edges of room seem to expand and crawl up the walls as Jean pushed himself closer and closer and trying to dissolve entirely in and through the door. Corners were never meant to dissolve into pure blackness that could rival any shade of the night sky ever recorded. Jean stared at the walls across him as he watched it dissolve under his vision, fingers shaking as his nails clawed itself on the floor and door and the rush of growing panic brought stars into his eyes as the blackness swam forward – towards him – sliding against the wood grain of the floor.

The sounds of glass smashing against brute force and furniture toppling over itself echoed itself up the stairs and for a second the darkness’ movements seemed to pause. Like it was taking a moment to assess the situation and make Jean even more scared for his little undead life. That second of stillness, where the world seemed to stop spinning entirely, was very well interrupted as quick as it had come through when a shrill noise resounded from the depths of the darkness.

A second later as the screams carried on, the dark corners retracted into itself. The refraction of the lighter from the sun catching itself against the dark as if it could emulate the lights of nightly constellations. The rumbling of furniture continues in the distance as the screaming carries through the house but over the noise, the distinct click of the locked doorknob above his ear shakes him out of his panic-induced stupor and he fumbles for a second to stand on his feet.

His hands scramble and sweaty palms slip on the metal but he’s finally able to get a grip on the doorknob and wrench it open on its creaky hinges. The sound of the hinges straining from the forceful pull of the door quietens the rest of the house, not even the sound of Jean’s heavy footfalls as he slams himself down the stairwell’s corners register over the serene atmosphere. Almost as if the people witting in the living room weren’t even there.

Careening across the corners of rusty hallways, chest slamming against the wood as his own unbeating heart slams against his chest and hoping to whatever higher being that could overpower a stupid dark demon that existed out there that he wouldn’t tumble over dusty rugs into a pool of incapacitated bodies.

What he finds instead is a silent room, furniture and bodies not falling over itself or others and no blood to be seen. As Jean stands in the archway to the living room, heavily panting and trying to catch a breath, he’s able to grab that focus and he notices there really is no blood at all. The faces huddled around the board on the dusty table pale and taut as the sit there wide-eyed and open-mouthed staring out the tall brunet Jean can only see the back of. The pale faces with their blood probably rushing into their hearts as their fight of flight instincts race through veins are all turned to Marco and in Jean’s direction as he stares back at them. Their hands are still entwined and he can feel the energy still rippling in the room, much more muted than what he’d experienced upstairs and he steps forward slowly and focuses on the hands hovering over the Ouija board in front of them.

The planchette grinds itself down under freckled and pale hands as it slides against the little cardboard game.

H-E-R-E

The short blond, whose name escape Jean at that moment, speaks up and the slash of golden hair illuminated by the glowing restaurant sign in the dark, night sky crosses his mind. He shakes the feeling and lingering face away as Jean focuses back on the boy’s mouth moving and attempting at making words come out. He needs to keep his head in the moment. He can’t suddenly leave when the chances of never coming back without finding out was so close. “He’s here. B-but Marco. Marco, what the heck was that?”

They’d felt it too. The disturbance that shook Jean’s bones and left him suffering aftershock had traveled through the small living room. It explained the paleness that everyone contrasted deeply with the setting darkness from the setting sun outside. He didn’t know what time it could possibly be but the threatening of darkness was beyond any night sky he’s previously been exposed to. The probability of danger looming over the growing shadows and forlorn faces across from him.

Marco’s voice, rattled from either unused or strain, spoke up into the darkening room and a chill unrelated to the moon’s sudden presence as the only naturally occurring light source ran through Jean’s spine and he watched from the corner of his peripheral Eren shiver in turn.

Eren looked as though a freight train had just ran over his entire family. Eyes wide and red and entire body shaking as he stared at Marco.

“It’s not just Jean. Something else did that. Something – something bigger. I don’t – Jean!”

Yes

Marco’s head whips around and Jean swears he can hear the snap of it and he internally panics at the thought of Marco pulling something out of The Exorcist and the irony of it all throwing everybody off their feet. Instead he comes to face eye-to-eye with the boy sitting in front of him and grounding his entire being into the dark floor he absentmindedly leans forward towards Marco.

“Marco was is it?” comes the voice of the raven-haired girl sat across from a still shaking Eren. Eren whose gaze has somehow turned up from looking at Marco like everyone else and is, instead, directed up and drilling itself into my face. His mouth opens and shuts itself, his working throat trying to find a hook in his thoughts and words and Marco seems to notice the look I’m giving over his shoulder and he turns to look back at Eren as well.

“Eren?” he asks quietly, voice barely over a whisper.

His hands are shaking beyond belief and the intensity of Eren’s gaze on Jean leaves him nervous and antsy standing in front of them, so open in the air to everyone. Eren’s voice shakes when he speaks and it physically seems it takes everything in him to wrangle in his breath to get the words out. “He’s not that cute.”

“What?” Marco asks his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

 _“I mean I can see what you mean but he looks more like a horseface,”_ Eren says. His voice absolutely sincere and emotionless as he babbles in Jean’s direction.

 _“Excuse me?”_ Jean mutters, affronted at the snide, offhanded remark.

“Oh god. And he even sounds like a prick. Reminds me of-” his voice stops as he looks panicked and confused at where his train of thought was leading to. “Fucking. Jean. Kirschtein.”

_“Shit man what the fuck.”_

“Eren, what are you talking about? What do you mean Kirschtein? What are you-” Marco rambles.

“Kirschtein. As in horseface Kirschtein that gave me migraines and the occasional blowjob during missions.”

Marco’s face has gone red, his face scrunching into itself as he stares at Eren’s passive face. “Eren what the hell are you saying? You’re freaking everyone out” he says as he gestures to the others around the table. Their faces pale and confused mixed with worry as they look from Eren to Marco.

“That shitty world before this one. The world of the titans. We were there weren’t we Jean? All of us? And somehow we still managed to meet your salty ass in the most unfortunate circumstances.”

Jean gapes at Eren, mouth trying to work its way into sounding out words that don’t even register to him. He glances down at Marco who’s still turned away and staring intently at Eren – also trying to grasp some kind of explanation – but neither seem to know what to say. Both at a loss.

Jean can only manage to shake his head before he’s interrupted by Eren again. Voice more stammered and syllables slurring this time. “I-I don’t know what that was. Shit. It’s like – fuck – it’s like my brain’s fighting to figure out what to say. Jean, I didn’t mean to- wait. I can see Jean. Why can I see Jean? What the fuck-”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to ask you, you dickweed,” the bald guy, Connie, speaks up. Slowly, everyone’s seeming to snap out of their stupor and actually incorporate themselves into the hurricane that blew itself through the house and soon enough pale faces leave letting in the louder, more vocal personalities. “Marco, do you have any idea what’s going on because everything you told us in the car was already freaky as fuck but this is going beyond stupid.”

Marco’s eyes graze over the board where everyone’s hands are still connected – the energy still rolling off of them in waves that he can start to feel the effects of – as he tries to find his words. Jean watches the looks of everyone’s confusion and gets a chance to glance around the room before he speaks. Furniture, years of not having been moved, are toppled over onto its sides. Dust clouds and dust bunnies stray across the floor as if someone had dragged them out of decades’ worth of closure.

“Jean.” His voice is quiet and even in the silence, you have to strain your ears to hear what he says. “Can you take me to see the titan God?”

 _“The what?”_ Jean asks aloud. Eren glances up at him for a second before shifting his eyes back down at Marco.

Marco turns his head to Eren. “You can hear him, right? Jean, will you take me there?”

 _“Eren.”_ Eren’s head snaps back at the blond still standing in the archway of the room at the sound of his name croaked out from Jean’s scratchy throat. It’s dry from the screams that had clawed its way from the depths inside him and from the force of trying to keep his emotions under him _. “Eren, tell him I don’t know how.”_

Eren’s gaze turns back to Marco. “He-he said he doesn’t know-”

“Jean,” Marco cuts Eren off, sharper than he probably meant to but not withholding anything even as everyone around him tenses under his voice. “I need to see the shithead that’s fucking with all of us. And I need you to take me there, Jean.”

He’s stuck. He’d been stuck in that godforsaken house for decades already. And now he’s stuck under the gaze Marco was currently shooting across his shoulders at him. Asking for an out, a path to the redemption that Jean wasn’t even sure he could supply. How the hell could he find that way to get them both to the doorstep of what Jean assumes to be the Master when he couldn’t even figure out why he was taking unannounced daytrips in the first place? But the conviction behind Marco’s voice. The sheer willpower in his words that emphasized how much this could mean to the tall brunet  

“Okay. Tell him I’ll figure out how.”

His gaze doesn’t falter from where it's staring at Marco. Not even when the massive shift in the room leaves everyone else shivering and glancing around at them. Not even when the screech of the wooden planchette on the plastic board sounds across the dark room scaring the life out of many of them. He doesn’t look away even as the faint voice from the blond boy registers in his ears as he spells out the words etching out of the board.

M-A-S-T-E-R

 

XXXXX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter yay! And it's longer than usual
> 
> I've noticed that since I first started writing out this fic back in November my style of writing has changed and personally I think I've been getting better at fleshing out the plot and trying to somewhat figure out what I want to write. That being said, I'm hoping to wrap up this (what was supposed to be little) project with a few more chapters and hopefully spend my summer break going back and editing the first 5 or 6 chapters. I mean this whole thing was for nanowrimo and building writing technique was the general motive to lengthen out this story so the fact that I have plans to actually have a decent ending is great. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm being sappy and that I'm glad I started writing this mess of a fic because it's been a long time coming for me to just write and not care about anything. So if you're here reading this and especially if you've been following this whole thing for a while now, I just wanna say thanks. you the real mvp and you make me so happy. 
> 
> If you want to read a more, I guess, meaningful story at least for me than please check out [Repenting for Someone Else's Sins](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3146726/). That thing means way more to me than is probably healthy and I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish in it so if you wanna like cry while I cry over writing some of the things I plan on writing then there's that. Other than that, I'm done self-promoting. 
> 
> Well kinda lol....
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	13. Coordinates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speaking face-to-face and hearing the other's voice is a new experience and it thrills the senses.

“Master.”

Jean’s eyes haven’t left Marco’s in what’s probably been a decade’s amount of time. The fluster of words and bodies around them as they tried to find comfort in the off aura in the room barely registered to either of them. He must have opened his mouth and said something to the freckled boy considering the urgency of Eren’s attempts to catch Marco’s attention. They both snap back into their shitty reality and shiver simultaneously at the sudden temperature change in the living room.  
“Marco, goddammit! Jean said he’ll take you. Now! Right, Jean? The boy turns to look at Jean, his green eyes flashing with uncertainty and fear _. I agreed to what?_ Everything was feeling like it was falling apart and the sudden chill in the summer night was no exception to their growing fear. The room was so cold it felt like he was back in that large library space with Hanji where even the roaring fireplace couldn’t diminish the strong chill.

He nods his head, resigning himself to the face Marco couldn’t hear him still. “Eren?” he asks quietly. The raven-haired boy turns his head to look at him directly. “How do you know – how the fuck can you even see me?’

Eren stares at him for a second, his eyes trailing across Jean’s face and Jean can feel his blood traveling up to the tips of his ears, flushing without proper reason. “You’re basically on the other side and you don’t remember do you? You really are a shitty horseface with a head too big for your peanut brain, huh.” He watches Jean intently as he shakes his head. “Jean-bo, I remember ALL!”

Mikasa’s coice cuts through the silence. “Eren,” she says warningly. They all seem apprehensive at what Eren’s saying as they huddle together trying to stay warm.

Eren brushes her tone off and keeps the smirk on his lips as he keeps flapping his mouth. “Mikasa was there too. She used to be amazing, almost as high ranking as Humanity’s strongest and shortest, Le-” his voice chokes in his throat. Eyes widening and watering at the corners as his mouth flops around. “Levi. Well that explains a couple of things,” he mutters. And-and everyone else too. They were all there for the great Titan War. So-some of us – they didn’t make it to the end when the deal was made but we were there. Together. Even you.” Eren’s mind seems to wander off as his glare shifts down at the dust bunnies shifting in the cold breeze.

Jean stared at them. No one told him anything about this “deal” Eren was talking about. He was confused but whatever Eren was saying jarred him around more than anything. Talking about having lived in a world with all of them when this world of “titans” – that Jean could only refer to the Master to as a comparison – and war was beyond anything Jean could remember. The looks on everyone else’s faces as Eren quietened down seemed on the same boat as his as they displayed all levels of confusion. The least of which coming from Marco. He seems lost in his own thoughts just as Eren.

The sound of the blonde’s squeaky voice comes through the white noise in his ear. “Eren what do you mean all of us? The-the book talked about soldiers not some kids-”

Eren cuts him off with a snort. He sucks his teeth as he shakes his head. “No. Armin we were kids and we were the soldiers. Limber bodies better for 3D maneuver gears I guess. Those people that made the deal were us – well most of us.” His gaze lingers up at Marco for too long a second and Jean’s heart sinks inside him. “This key” he grabs the chain still looped around his neck and Jean is finally able to look at it better, the glint of metal catching the sparce light and illuminating the sharp ridges of the key. “-this key is mine. Dad gave it to be back then just as he’d done now because I’m the damn key to that stupid titan world. The damn Coordinate that was the key piece to getting rid of the titans and making the world normal again if I promised to give it up along with the lives of my friends. We were the sacrifices that kept the world going until the people forgot our history and let the apocalypse shit happen.”

Eren’s breathing hard – his chest heaving dramatically as he forces air into his lungs as Armin clutches at his hand the entire time. “I don’t know why I remember you, Jean. But I do. And you were a good friend. I don’t know what that shitty Master wants now after destroying so much long ago but whatever it is that involves both you and Marco has to be connected. It’s connected far before this part century ever started. Your freckled boyfriend’s back, Jean, and I swear to god if you let anything happen to him again I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Jean and Marco’s eyes widen at Eren’s final words on the topic. They watch the boy lean back against Armin and the couch behind them, rubbing his fingertips into his temples. “Boyfriend?!” Jean very nearly squeaks at Eren. The only response he gets is a single finger in his direction and a sneer as he mumbles something about “selective hearing” and groaning about a headache. Jean glares at him, mentally cursing him with any kind of weird ghost curse he might be able to cause and coming out empty-handed for the huge blush rising into his cheeks.

Marco must’ve been on the same train of thought as his voice comes quieter than Jean’s but all the same confused “Boyfriend?”

Eren groans again. “Yes you guys were dating, jeez. Or at least about to start considering how palpable the sexual tension was with you two but same difference. Just-” he seems to sober up for a second, leaning away from Armin’s hands that were running anxious circles into his tan skin. “If you’re going to that thing’s place, make sure to come back. You have to come back this time, Marco. You might remember everything at some point like a damn iron was thrown at your head but just remember – Jean is dead. He’s been dead and you can’t fight that kind of fate. If you can find a way to break your ties to that thing than you’re good and you need to leave as soon as you can. If Jean gets a second chance then great but you can’t regress back into old habits that I know are still in you. You can’t sacrifice any part of you to let jean live, do you hear me?”

Marco’s wide-eyed as he listens to Eren spout words like he’s never known of anything else. Like the whole lecture was rehearsal enough that it easily fell out of his mouth like he’d been wanting to say it for years now. And with a sick jolt to the stomach Jean realizes that maybe Eren has – maybe the other past Eren had years of experience trying to keep his friends sage. Jean sighs into his palm, a hand going up to thread into his blond hair as Marco nods at Eren. “Eren’s right,” he says suddenly.

Marco’s head shoots up and sparks as he turns to look at Jean. The energy behind his brown eyes is stronger now and Jean can feel it affecting the entire room like a balloon about ready to pop. “Okay, yeah.” His voice is strained and tight as he stutters. “I can hear you too now. What the hell?” Marco’s head whips back at Eren who just solemnly nods his head as Marco flails at finding words to say. “I-I don’t remember. But I can hear Jean. What can I suddenly hear Jean?” He turns back to the others that have say quietly, watching the damn freak show going on. “Does that mean you guys can see Jean at least?” he asks them. They all shake their heads and although it deflates Marco, Jean’s glad he doesn’t have more people giving him slightly uncomfortable eyes without saying a work.

The chill in the air seems to drop a degree a minute and shudders the room as the room pitches black around them. The dark was far more sullen and intense as everyone’s movements stilled – awaiting the worst. They all say there, waiting for an ungodly sign that their world was ending or they were being put to an internal darkness but it never came. The darkness – a foreboding effect lingering in the corners of the room as it evenly spread itself around them – was steady and inert leaving in its place a terrifying calm that unsettled Jean. “Marco we need to go.”

Marco’s gaze lands on him, his lips trembling slightly in the raw air. Jean has no idea where he’s going to take the guy. He says he wants to go find Master and demand an explanation for whatever but Jean can’t just lead him to his death. He doesn’t even know if he can even drag Marco’s body to Utgard. Jean was able to suddenly show up because he was already dead and he didn’t take Eren’s threat of an ass kicking seriously but it didn’t mean he was willingly going to kill the guy for the small chance to fix their problems. Jean couldn’t be that selfish.

And yet here he was. Taking slow steps backwards out of the room, looking around at everyone in the room and trying to relax his breathing. Marco watches him intently and with a quick glance around the room, he’s on his feet as well. A farewell is said at some point but Jean’s mind is elsewhere as he turns to make the trek up the stairs. It’s a slow walk – the sound of his feet falling hard on wood floors as his grip tightens hard on the bannister, threatening to cause fissures in the old wood. He doesn’t know if he’s actually breathing or if that tightening in his chest was a sign of other things. All he could feel – recognize – around him was the figure of someone behind him. Following close but too afraid to speak or reach a hand out in fear that reality could crash down on them. Or, rather, suffocate them from all sides as the darkness seemed to seep thicker and richer as they got closer to the large door at the end of the hall.

Marco stays steps behind Jean and he understands the apprehension that radiates off the freckled boy. Life’s choices are always a toss in the air and one thing could lead to a totally different future. Marco was getting himself into a bowling tournament and there were only two actual endings this could result in. he could either hit a few pins and make it back with only slight damage or it could become an entire gutter and well – he doesn’t. it was a simple toss-up between life and death and whatever issues Marco was dealing with must’ve been a large scale problem because he was still there, looming over Jean with a curious look on his face as Jean’s hands shook over that stupid metal doorknob.

Jean swallows down the feeling of rising bile as he grips onto the cool metal beneath his fingertips – letting it travel down his system in a slight shiver – and he takes that long breath to relax enough to open the door. The hinges, still very creaky and in need of oiling, open to the bedroom – papers still strewn around the floor and scratches still lined in synchronization along the floors and thin walls. The room is bathed in the dark sky outside the window and can feel that pressing in his chest rising as he walks inside, letting Marco enough room to close the door behind them. The soft click of the lock echoes under their silence and Jean feels that bit of irritation build under each successive bout of silence. Marco can hear him now and here he is, not knowing how to breathe without sounding like a raggedy old hag.

Marco seems to be having similar difficulties as he wavers where he’s standing – eyes darting across the floor and walls – and takes a shaky breath. “Jean.”

“I believe Eren,” he spits out. It’s the first thing he can think of saying and a quick glance at the papers reminds him that he’s not wrong. “I did a bit of. Uh. Researching. These papers mentioned an Eren and Levi and _this_ Eren’s story pretty much matches what the papers say.” His voice seems to grab onto that small but of leverage and Jean keeps talking – speaking what’s on his mind. “Eren drowned according to the papers and if what he‘s saying aligns, there’s no doubt the kid drowned standing in front of Master. I don’t remember a lot from when I first died in this life but-but Master is this entity that the other side reveres as a God. This darkness – it’s not unlikely that Eren drowned under it. And Levi-” Jean looks up at Marco’s face and he falters for a second. The guy looks absolutely crestfallen and Jean known it’s probably too much but he needs to say everything before something interrupts them. “Le-Levi worked at the burger place I worked at and I’m guessing from Eren’s reaction, you guys have met him too?” Marco nods his head. “He used to be Eren’s babysitter. They used to be pretty close during operations, apparently. I don’t know anything about the others but I’m sure when we get back from Utgard, Eren will tell you anything he knows and can answer.”

“Utgard?”

“That’s where Master resides.”

“O-Ohh”

“It’s kinda like this small town except Petra – um you probably have met here at some point too – she said that the residences have recently as in like in the past 20 years have been forced to leave or were taken away because they were being unuseful or something like that. Not too sure since I pretty much only have what I know but-”

“They were the people the old world. That monster kept them as revenge or for a future meal.”

Jean’s eyes widen at the sudden brashness to Marco’s words and seeing no remorse or halt in the glare he’s sending at the wall over Jean’s shoulder, he probably won’t be changing his opinion on the matter any time soon.

Marco continues talking as if his change in tone wasn’t as jarring as it was. “The deal was broken and the world was sucked into hell. Now we’re stuck in our own little hell but what the hell happened that could lock us up without any blatant regard for the peace of everything.”

Jean wants to say something. The sudden urge to smooth down the lines etched into Marco’s forehead startles him but settles itself right and comfy in the middle of his chest as he watches his vision’s edges blur into that familiar darkness. He hears Marco – a restrained “Jean” under the heavy air – but doesn’t respond. Not yet.

 

XXXXX

 

Marco follows Jean. He follows like there’s a thin string connecting the two boys at the hips that keeps them a certain distance away for both of their safety but still close enough to hear his ragged breathing. Jean leads them down dark hallways that had probably long ago housed a small family with rowdy kids and was now the quintessence of a horror movie scene. He watches the way the blonde’s hands shake as he fists them at his sides and on the doorknob and follows him inside without a second thought as to what he’s getting himself into.

They make it far enough that Marco is able to shut the door behind them and they last long enough in the silence before the darkness starts shifting from the corners of the room into their line of vision. It comes as a surprise to Marco but the way that the tawny-eyed boy seems to welcome the dark makes him rethink his own reaction. Jean lets the darkness soak into his face as his eyes fog up and sight drifts off and Marco lets his own do the same as he watches Jean blur from his vision and dissolve into black.

When he opens them in what feels like a second later, he’s taken back at the sheer light streaming through his irises. The dim light’s been replaced by large source of light shooting death rays at his face that very near blinds him as he tries to blink away the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Adjusting to the light is hard enough without the feeling of being squished against a pile of bricks but the way his cheek digs into ragged edges confuses the senses even more as the smell of old parchment fills his nose.

It takes a bit of shifting and realizing that the object pushing against his side and back is actually a lean body with the name “Jean” attached to it when he realizes that the blazing sunlight he was staring into was actually a warm fireplace lit in an expansive room that it could never get close to heating fully. Blinking away the fuzziness at his peripherals the small space that separates Marco from Jean allows him to see that he’s leaned against a rather tipsy-looking pile of books stacked haphazardly alongside a stack that’s dangerously close to the roaring fire. There isn’t much heat radiating off of the rising columns of light and it entices Marco more until he realizes he’s been staring at the fire long enough for Jean to start stirring around his body and shifting into the curve of his side. Marco stiffens under the movement – not even daring himself to shift an inch or two away from the blond without turning it into a scene that would just end up embarrassing them both even more. So he sits there and waits for Jean to grab the reins of coherence enough to remove his body weight off of Marco.

A voice filters in through the slight ringing of his ears and he uses all of his energy to focus when he hears the last part of “can you hear me now” that gets Marco giggling like an idiot stirring Jean from his daze even more. He’s right up in his ear when his hoarse voice mutters into Marco’s ear, “What’s so funny?”

A blush flits through Marco’s face quick enough but vanishes just as fast when he drags a hand out from under him and covers a cough. The dust in this place is ridiculous. “I’m not sure. What is this place?”

Jean’s head swivels around for a second and Marco feels him stiffen next to him and hears the groan ripple out of him. “Fuck. We’re at Hanji’s shitty library. Oh god where are they?”

Marco’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. He’d heard that name before – or at least the remnants of a conversation that had gone halted. “Hanji? Armin’s professor?”

“Uh. Probably considering everything’s a weird game of being rewound.”

The person must’ve been close enough distance to hear their small conversation because a second later, accompanied with the crash of books and papers later, a figure pops up over the stacks of dust-collecting spines, their hands perched on a slim waist. “Did somebody ring?” comes the shrill chirp from the figure and Marco grimaces and the sharpness but it intermingles with the chuckles that follows as he watches the figure stumble over stacks trying to get close enough for Marco to see them without him having to crane his neck so far over Jean’s shoulder.

Jean must’ve gotten the message as he shifts himself over to hunch over himself giving Marco the chance to sit up on the bench they’d been thrown onto. How they’d both gotten into that situation and in that room was beyond him but as long as he wasn’t lost in some kind of scary situation already placed in front of this titan lord, he wasn’t complaining. Cracking his back and releasing the tension built up in his shoulders from the odd placement he’s able to turn his body enough to look properly at the new arrival. They’re hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail and the way their glasses are placed haphazardly over their head is endearing and makes them look rather cute in the way they hold themselves. Marco can’t figure out whether boy or girl would be the appropriate way to assign him and he understands really quickly why Jean had referred to the lanky figure as “they” as Hanji gets closer to them, mumbling something under their breath.

Feeling completely out of place seated so close to Jean, Marco stands up to greet Hanji properly and the way that their face lights in enthusiasm as Marco reaches a hand forward makes Marco’s smile all the more genuine and radiant as they shake hands.

“I’m guessing since Marco here isn’t one of the living dead that you guys are here to fulfill that damned prophecy once and for all,” says a voice much lighter than Marco would’ve expected, stumbled across the last few steps it takes for them to stand in front of the two boys.

Marco blinks up at them. “Uh. You know my name,” he says offhandedly. It comes off almost as a question but considering the week, he’s not as surprised as he probably should’ve been.

“Course I do boy. Out of all of these books I’ve swam through, you thing I wouldn’t know what your name is?”

“No I didn’t-”

“Your problem is an interesting one.” They tilt their head, eyebrows rising in deep thought as they pace back and forth in front of them. Jean tenses up alongside Marco, both wary about what this seemingly insane person might just pull out to through them in for another loop. “There isn’t a proper revival path and trying to explain anything is futile for you two so we’re just gonna go ahead and say there isn’t a way to fix it. It’ll take too much out of everyone and it isn’t worth the risks. Is there anything that you need because if not I really need to check up on Bean before the second coming.” They look earnest as their eyes flicker between Marco and Jean, making the former curl up slightly against the latter.

Jean snaps irritably, sucking his teeth in annoyance. “Tch. We’re not idiots and we’re not children. Not this time around. Just tell us what this mysterious “it” is and reveal the dumbass big secret on what the fuck is going on.”

“Well aren’t we being more vocal and problematic today? What’s got your tighty-whities in a ruffle up that tiny crack of your, Kirschtein? Because according to the books, it ain’t your former beau.”

Jean pinks slightly but scowls nonetheless at the amused expression on Hanji’s face. “It probably has something to do with those boxes of papers you’ve been throwing into that closet. None of it was even in any way English and the few words I got was confusing enough to make me vocal about needing an explanation. Now.”

“Such moodiness. And what if I say that it isn’t worth it, huh? What if I were to say that living the rest of your lives or – in your case, Jean – eternity, was better than any sick conclusion that this path could lead into. You don’t need to know any more than you do. Live your lives knowing that there once was a world where everything was horrible and we were killed for a greater good that wasn’t even fulfilled long enough to maintain a history. Fixing this little thing isn’t going to fix what’s sure to come soon enough even if it does make a slight dent in the expansion of time.”

Jean stiffens and Marco’s throat runs dry at Hanji’s words. The way that they speak sparks the room and both boys seem to feel it shifting around them like a cloud of bad energy waiting to erupt in a storm of heat and terrible things. But neither of them want that life of inconclusive endings and it takes Jean to make that step into what could be the middle of a hurricane.

“Time is time. Just tell us what we need to do. We’re not here to save the damned world or whatever it is that you said. Marco wants an out and I just need to leave the stupid house before I lose my mind amongst blank walls.”

They seem to ponder the request for a second, deciding whether either of them are worth the effort. They nod their head in a silent agreement and opens his mouth taking a deep breath in and letting themselves relax onto the pile of books. “Do you want the whole situation or do you think you can make the inferences?”

Marco is the one to respond this time, finding the strength from who knows where as his hands shake next to Jean’s and the urge to grip the wiry fingers splayed across the bench motivates him to do just that. Their fingers entangle and although Marco can feel the wild stare radiating off of Jean directed at him it soon disappears and he feels the fingers around his own tighten as they sit and wait for Hanji to say something.

“Marco’s mom was supposed to be taken that night. She was supposed to be part of this new generation of sacrifices but the circumstances were not ideal and something happened that night that left a part of Master itself inside freckle’s mother. She left that house with a piece that wasn’t meant to be taken and that little bit of demonic soul was enough to cause a mass panic down here.

“Jean showing up to the house the very next week was this second blessing that a lot of the people of Utgard had hoped would stop The Killings. When a new body reaches close enough to the open portals, notifications air across the skies and people thought that this was going to save them. Jean’s soul was meant to be redemption for what Keira ruined. But something about what was taken had caused faults in the process and although parts of Jean was enough to fix the small damage, it wasn’t enough and the rest of him was thrown out for further decision-making by the arbiters. One of which – Levi – must’ve had a weak spot for you because he let you live although stuck in that house for all of eternity, but live nonetheless.”

They let a breath of air float in between their bodies as the boys sit side by side, soaking in this information and trying to even their breathes between them. Their grips on each other’s hands have turned the pink blushes into ghost-like white as they tighten and relax into one another. Hanji watches them like a hawk, making sure neither goes into a panic and once they see that they seem calm enough, they continue.

“That little demon soul that was set in Keira’s soul transferred a few years later.”

Marco’s grip tightens on Jean who turns his head to watch Marco’s face go stone-cold and bleary-eyed as he stares at the mantel above the fireplace. “Five years later. I was born five years later.”

“Your mother lived with it for five years until you came along and took that pain from her. Instead you left her physical body with the fact that you carried a heavy burden that could never really be taken away. It’s why you were always able to see the dark things that go bump in the night. It’s why you were a pretty scary child when you barely knew how to even use your words properly.”

“I want it gone. How do I get rid of it? How do I get this equilibrium back in place and get Jean’s soul back to him.”

“Marco you can’t-” Jean starts.

Marco’s quick to interrupt, on the verge of yelling at the blond. “No! I’m done! I can offer that piece back to him and then he won’t need that bit of Jean in him that keeps Jean locked in this hell hole. Hanji, where do I go to see this Master?”

Hanji glances at Jean for a second, a strong knowing look passed between the two of them as Marco waits for a response.

“The next feeding is set to be soon. It’s been a long time coming but many of us as in Erwin, Levi, Petra and I have assumed it to be the second end all. The imbalance has been detrimental to everyone that has resided these long centuries in Utgard and we’ve exhausted the resources to appease the titan lord. The only way that you two could possibly help is to make that deal. Restore a balance that’s been lost for decades now and keep the rhythm of sacrifices at bay until we are able to collect the souls that could maintain the peace between the two worlds for centuries longer. We can only do so much until it’s too much but if you sacrifice yourselves to the cause, you might be able to buy the time we need to find a new fix.”

Jean pales, his complexion stark white against the heat of the fire. “Sacrifice.”

“Marco will be offering a part of him that’s he’s been accustomed to since conception. Jean. There might not be a return for you. Once your small piece returns, there’s a chance that it’ll finally signal the end of your legacy or change everything we know about the rhythm of the life cycle. Your life is the biggest gamble.”

“Great. So you ready to go, Marco?”

Marco nods, his hands tightening on Jean’s and they both stand up. They’ve already said any option is the option they would take. Eren had said to be wary of faulty endings and this was all the information they could possibly gather on what was to come. And they were ready. Ready to do whatever it took to make things balanced again. To break those damn bolted locks on their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. I'm ending the story very soon. In like one chapter soon. I have half of the next/final chapter already written out and I'll be posting it when I start spring break so I can have that entire week to write for Repenting. It might be divided into 2 chapters just so I can have that epilogue but either way this thing will finally have the "Complete" sticker pasted on it's cover very soon. 
> 
> I wanna thank all the peeps that have stayed by my side as I struggled stupidly to write this thing without bringing my personal life into the equation. I know I've been a constant rollercoaster of being early and late to the updating game but yeah man. Shit happens and school is hard and people are like...annoying. But if you want the personal life information, Repenting is a pretty good bet on how fucked up my childhood kinda was. I don't really know how to explain it but check it out if you like the fucked up stuff. 
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	14. Resurrection

They make it to the end of the street, the large mansion-like structure looming over their heads as they look up at the architecture for a second. The way the curves of the stone and gargoyles look down at them sends shivers down Marco’s spine but they’re no reason to back out now. His hands still held tight between him and Jean, Marco leads them inside the open doorway of the space feeling like he’s leading a damned processional to their death.

I mean that’s basically what it is.

There was no reason to believe that either of them were going to come out the same people. Marco would be missing a part of himself and Jean just might be missing his entire self. But that was what they had wanted. Marco wanted to get rid of the congestion he felt inside of him – that feeling of feeling too much inside his being and not like how he wants to. Jean wanted it to all end, to have a conclusion laid out for him to follow and whether that meant death or a second chance didn’t matter as long as he could leave that house.

Their footfalls match alongside each other in rhythm as they walk the expanse of the entryway. The darkness inside floods the room but the sparse amount of light that the night sky outside the windows allow them to carve the path they follow towards the heavy, metal doors across the room. They aren’t able to seem much outside of that. The walls are bare and with very little to expand the architecture and designs of the old building, Marco’s the least bit interested in any of it. He’s set on finishing this and the way Jean stays in step next to him reassures him he’s not alone.

Standing in front of the door that leads to neither knows where is the hard part. Trying to get themselves to grab onto the large handles of the door to open it is the second hardest. Walking into the darkness that radiates itself out and over the both of them, making them feel like their drowning in their own head spaces is the easy part.

It feels as though they’re walking through sludge and heavy snow and the way that their feet drag on the hard surface of the floor is confusing and painful but they trudge on in the dark stopping only when they realize that the echoing sounds of heavy breathing isn’t coming from either of them but rather from the corners of the heavy must around them. It’s not a voice that comes to them but it’s the echo that branches off of the walls and reaches them through layers and layers of thick material that they finally understand that they are being personally addressed of their purpose.

The feeling of congestion and pressure building around him seems to be that last cause for him to snap as he stares off into every direction he can manage his neck to rotate to. “Take it! Take the damn fucking thing and leave us alone! Let us live our lives in peace for fucks sake!”

Jean reaches his free hand around to hold Marco in place by his shoulders. He’s whispering something about calming down and taking this in a different approach that’ll result in better tidings but Marco doesn’t listen. He lets that rage inside of him explode outside that large filter his entire life has lived in. He lets it sit inside his chest as Jean tries his best to reach Marco. It’s useless though. It’s too much.

His voice cracks when he speaks next – emotional over the heaviness that’s sitting right center inside of him. “Let me go home. Please,” he pleads to an unknown figure.

It comes off a face at first. Almost human-like in what little light that’s able to filter from the still open door behind them. Marco’s eyes focus over Jean’s shaking shoulders and Jean stiffens as he notices the glaze that’s over Marco’s eyes and he turns around as well to look at the large glowing eyes of a night sky looking down at them. It’s as if the darkness had suddenly decided that it wanted to be more – something that came with its own set of constellations that no one could assign a name to unless they were ready to meet their ends. Unless they were Marco and Jean. The twinkling of stars reflected off of the sets places all around the room and Marco feels as though he’s been thrown into space, left to travel and float through the galaxy and find his own place to set his feet down.

He can feel the energy shifting as it had done back at the house. The way it feels like he’s being sucked out from a straw but left entirely there all the same. Like a part of him was leaving. He finds out soon enough that the itchiness left across his face are the streaks of tears racing down his cheeks as he whispers over and over again. “Please.”

It’s a flash of light, coming and going just as fast as it had come. Marco watches his vision falter but not without watching the way Jean’s entire body crumbles over himself into a heap on the floor. Marco wants to yell and shout and help the boy that’s done more than he could possibly expect of a lost soul but he’s rooted in his spot as he feels himself lose that grip on reality and fiction as well. He feels that euphoria of losing touch with the ground and slipping over himself as his head hits hard on the rough floor but the pain isn’t what registers in his mind. His mind is more preoccupied with the flashing of scene after scene from places and events that he has no recollection of ever experiencing.

Images of flying through the air and looking over to find that familiar tone of blond and brown hair next to him and smiling at that overwhelming emotion of reassurance tingling his fingers over the slight warmth of the metal in his hands. The sorrow of saying goodbye to loved ones you don’t remember and little bodies that cling onto every one of your limbs, filtered voices telling you stay and wait for the next year because you’ve already waited one. That feeling of love and heat exploding inside of him as he remembers the way that it felt under the pressure of another’s body hovering over him, leaving their own set of marks on his raw skin while the expansive room drowned in silence and distant sounds of snoring boys. Feeling that different set of euphoria as he watched tawny eyes grow closer and closer to him and that pressure shifting from his center down further into his gut and onto his tingling lips as he reveled in the feeling of Jean on him and breathing in his scent as if it was his own supply of oxygen. It was that rush of fear and pain reigniting inside him as he watched the large figure above him reach a hand out to him, bringing his limp body up to its face and the overpowering smell of copper and vision of raw flesh leaving him breathing hard and breathless all the same. The rush of everything over him leaving all at once after a searing pain acts as a shut off switch in his head.

Is this what it was like for Eren when he remembered? That rush of emotions that leaves him motionless and frozen on the spot and letting everything flush itself around and against him.

Marco watches the way that Jean’s chest flutters under the weight of the flickering darkness. He watches the way it slows its pace over the minutes they spend on the cold floor just far enough that their hands are barely able to graze the others. He turns his head, too afraid and scared to watch Jean slow too far into nothingness and he’s instead met with the expanse of stars above his eyes – blinking down at him and creating pictures that don’t mean a damned thing over the sound of Jean’s wheezing breaths getting horribly less vital. His vision blears at the edges but this time it isn’t the pressure of darkness macerating onto his eyes. His cheeks are damp and he feels the trails of salty water slide down the sides of his profile, through the craters of his ears and digging through the roots of his hair to splatter onto the ground.

He can feel the effects full force now like he’s been ran over by a passenger train over and over as he lay there letting it travel through him, ripping him to shreds.

Marco blacks out at some point.

Or for technicality’s sake, he greys out of momentary existence and when he opens his eyes some time later, the constellations have vanished to leave him staring up at familiar, deep-inlayed cracks in a greying ceiling. There’s multiple people fluttering over his body and above his head he can see the blurs of people shooting in and out of his line of sight – yelling something incoherent and muffled at another person who then comes to sidle into his blurred vision. They’re all too fast for Marco to find a focus point but he tries. He tries to get his mouth to open and talk to those he assumes are his friends panicking around his limp body. He tries to tell them where it feels like he’s missing a part of his body – where he feels empty like a vital organ was just removed and he was sent home to live a life without that part of him to keep him feeling whole. To keep him from being a whole person again.

The feeling reminds him of that summer before senior year when he was dragged out of band camp and taken to the emergency room because he hadn’t taken the pain in his side seriously and ended up lain up in bed for a week with a missing appendix. The first few weeks after finally being able to sit in a position that wasn’t just his back consisted of a lot of weirdness as every time he flopped onto his side, he could feel that emptiness inside of him where something used to be. He could feel the rest of him trying to adjust to this sudden disappearance and failing for a good month as he recovered.

This was different. This was far bigger than a missing, useless organ. Marco felt like the whole side of his body was ripped off of him and the flash of recently unearthed memories – events of his own life – jarred him back to reality as his vision concentrated back to this world. The present world where Eren was hovering right over his face and telling him to “snap out of it”.

Marco groans for what feels like hours as his throat scratches out a rough noise in discomfort. He looks around the room for a second longer on his back and sees that he’s still in the quiet bedroom and that his friends were all scattered around either collecting the scraps of burnt papers or sitting quietly, their heads too far out of it for anyone to ask for help. Mikasa, Sasha and Armin are the ones doing most of the cleaning – Sasha taking a second here and there to tilt her head at the strange writing on the papers – while Connie sits stock straight on the bed, staring into the closet but not entirely letting his eyes focus on the dim light hitting the creaky door coming from the window.

It’s still dark outside – probably still the same night, Marco hopes.

All of his friends are here but that emptiness was still there and as he sat up on his ass with Eren close by just in case he decided to make a trip down unconscious lane again, Marco feels it fully when he realizes there’s more than just something inside of him missing.

“Jean,” he says. It comes off as almost a question but the way the name rolls off his tongue feels different now, more familiar like he’s been saying it for years and that any tone his voice could reach has said that singular word over and over again.

Eren shakes his head and he sits himself down in front of Marco. “He didn’t make it back.” Marco blinks up at him. “We don’t know anything. Do you remember what happened?” he asks quietly. He’s wary around him and Marco wonders what he must look like – how disheveled of an appearance he must be giving off to show that he’s not okay. Not in one single way.

Marco looks down at his hands – at the way that they shake as he holds them in his lap between him and Eren – and he chuckles to himself at the thought that him and Eren were meant to be a thing. Eren must’ve taken his laughing as a sign that he’s completely gone off the hinges because he clutches Marco’s shoulders to steady him as Marco’s laugh gradually turns into soft sobbing. “He’s gone.”

“Marco” someone whispers across the room. It sounds like Sasha but Marco doesn’t care – not really.

Eren rests his hands over Marco’s, gripping it tight, and the memory pains Marco but he looks up into the green eyes staring down at him. “You knew there was a chance this would happen. Marco it’s over and you can move on now. Jean knew that he could possibly be taken away and he was fine with it and you should be glad that now he’s free, yeah? Jean’s free and he can move on now.”

Marco nods his head, his motions happening with little thought as he looks around at the faces around him. Letting it go and recovering was the key to getting used to the emptiness. There was no way that that large hole inside of him could ever be properly filled but letting himself get used to the feeling, living life as normal without that piece of him would be that first step to normalcy. And with a final nod of his head, more intentional now, he agrees.

He agrees to weeks of friends showing up at the end of his bed to make sure he got up and out and moved on with life. He agrees to the constant phone calls from his parents, accepting apologies of years’ worth of lies and deceit and letting his mother talk about history that he wants so desperately to forget forever but doesn’t want to let be forgotten. He agrees to move on with his studies and letting the lectures and labs for nursing school drown his thoughts and top-of-the-mind actions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. The last chapter before the epilogue. Let me know what you think. 
> 
> [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


	15. Epilogue

It was hard trying to find the right door.

Figuring out where lost connections lived was a process and without knowing the few people that could make up the line of relations that could leave him successful was a pain in the ass and god was it tiring. Also the people that he had to interact with couldn’t kill to be a little nicer and agreeable with giving the information he needed. Talking to Levi, in this lifetime and the past life, has never been the top free-time activity Jean ever wanted to take part in. But he was on a mission and the only person that he could think of that involved his objective came with a certain green-eyed dickhead and his past pedophilic lover. So Levi is was.

The interaction was full of sarcasm and a lot of yelling coming from a much nicer Petra but he got his information and with a quick step to avoid a sentimental Erwin, Jean made it out of the restaurant and towards the long line of apartment buildings that stretched towards the town’s local university. He walked for what felt like hours. Mostly because holy shit technology had really advanced since the last time he was able to step out into direct sunlight. Oh the sunlight. The warmth soaking through the thin jacket he’d donned on all those years ago was blissful and left Jean feeling all levels of groggy but energized. Vitamin D deficiency was one hell of a drug to wane off of for so long.

And so what the other goddamn D deficiency he was trying to fix. It wasn’t even the decades of being alone for so long, locked in a house with no electricity or magazines of any sort to keep him company. Hell, it wasn’t even the 22 years before that where he lived life in painful slow motion only for the inevitable to happen. It felt like centuries of being away – of not knowing about what he was even missing – that had Jean hurrying his steps through the early spring morning.

It’d been months since that night at the house. At the terrifying, dark town hall of Utgard. Months since Jean felt every bit of oxygen leave his body, filling in its place a plethora of memories that felt so foreign yet so familiar all the same. They flooded his head as he lay there staring up at the sparkling darkness of Master as it took pieces of him straight out of his lungs. Jean was drowning under his own weight intermingled with the pressure above him dispelling the air out of his chest. The last bits of which left him feeling renewed as though he’d never had anything keeping him in place or over his head in the first place. As though everything about the past two decades had been a damn lie and that Jean was actually fully able to leave the confines of the rickety house. He’d woken up how many hours later in Hanji’s library by himself. Marco wasn’t with him this time.

Hanji would tell him later that Marco had vanished by the time they’d come to investigate the scene (aka clean up any messes that may have been left and used said messes for scientific purposes). They told Jean anything that could be explained. Parts of the past that he couldn’t fully explain and needed help in understanding further. But all of that even came off as white noise as his brain always seemed to shift to a topic that Hanji knew very little of.

Marco had never made it to the point of joining the Survey Corps so they couldn’t possibly know what made the freckled boy tick.

Jean walked down the sidewalk, reveling in the fact that his feet could touch down onto something other than dusty carpeting or buckling wood floor panels and letting the pollinated air fill his lungs with the potential allergic reactions that were sure to come once he stayed outside long enough. He really needed to find this damn apartment.

Quick glances at closed doors and drawn windows to let in the sunlight but keep out the bugs and pollen soon enough lead Jean to the golden door of answers. Well technically it’s nowhere near golden but the way it seems to pop and shine in front of Jean is similar to any tennis bracelet his mom would adorn on anniversaries. The greenish tint to the wood is similar to all the others next to it and the glint of light that reflects off of the doorplate catches on the rim of Jean’s new pair of Ray Bans as he sets them to rest on top of his head.

He’d been given a bit of time and with a quick pull-through with the help of Erwin, Jean suddenly had access to accounts and insurance that his parents had left the Earth with. Rich wouldn’t be the right word for it but the growing interest over the years left a good taste in Jean’s mouth. He knew that there would be a rather large chance that neither of his aging parents would still be alive now in 2015 so the news hadn’t come as much of a shock but the pain that he missed milestone birthdays and funeral services left Jean bitter.

Jean stands there on the stoop of the door, staring it down and willing it to open on its own without him needing to make the first move. He does it for a good five minutes before he realizes the odd stares he’s receiving from crazy-looking cat lady walking down the sidewalk is directed straight at him and he takes that plunge into the deep sea and raises his hands to knock on the door. The hollow wood echoes inwards into the apartment and Jean plays that waiting game again.

Maybe he’s not home. Maybe they all moved out and Eren never told Levi their new address. What if he doesn’t remember anything or he’s repressed it all again and Jean’s just standing here looking like a total dickhead with a personal agenda that seems so sadistic in the long run.

Jean’s debating his entire line of motives and so into his internal monologue that he doesn’t even notice the creaking of the door opening in front of him. His hands are stuffed into his pockets as he stares determinately at the ground trying to figure out his life that he doesn’t notice the way Eren’s eyebrows rise so far up his hairline that they nearly fly off and how his lips flicker into a knowing smile before it falls into a smirk.

When Jean finally snaps his head out of his ass and stares down at Eren – still smirking with arms folded across his chest looking Jean up and down – he smiles stupidly and immediately pulls in the short boy to chest and crushes him under pale arms.

Eren’s mumbling something into his chest about not being able to breath but Jean just pulls him in closer and placing a quick kiss to the top of his head before Eren roughly pulls away from him. The darker boy straightens his shirt, laying it flat against his stomach and adjusting the line of kiss remnants in his hair and talking to a giddy Jean. “Just because that shit could fly before, doesn’t mean you can now. Marco’s not dead this time you spaz.” He grins back up at Jean and with a greeting punch to his bicep, Jean follows Eren into the apartment. “He’s in the bedroom studying or something. I’m heading out to work so just – keep the jizz away from my bed or I’ll kill you Kirschtein.”

Jean pinks a bit but he smiles just the same as he gives a salute to Eren’s retreating body shutting the front door behind him. He turns around on his heels, staring down the only door that’s closed. No one else seems to be home and Jean thanks everything in the world for the privacy because no way would he ever be able to live through the thought of losing himself in front of anyone except Marco. Looking at the white grainy door – another barrier keeping him from his old freckled Jesus – he resolves to just get it over with. Less time spent thinking about what might happen means more time spent with the boy.

He walks towards the doorway, reveling in the fact that it doesn’t resemble the scratched and dented wood he’d been surrounded by for the past two decades, and pushes it open slightly, letting it creak as he watches the stiff, built figure hunched over his desk and pouring over books stacked high enough to rival Hanji’s piles. Jean steps into the room, making sure that his footfalls don’t disrupt or startle Marco. Inching his way closer to the boy, Jean’s able to see every aspect of him with proper lighting that wasn’t filtered through lines of trees and shuttered windows.

The freckles are the same. Little constellations he remembered mapping out centuries ago that he’d spent hours meticulously creating images out of. Even his hair was the same as when they’d both been training, the dip of the back of his neck pooling the ends of his undercut while the tops came out at the front to frame his face. His squishy nose still the same level of squishy-looking but now there wasn’t the fear that someone might see Jean getting sentimental over a silly boy with eyebrows that always furrowed when he was concentrating. That same urge to go over and flatten his thumb between them surged inside Jean and he took that walk, standing next to the crowded desk in front of an unmade bed, reaching a hand out in front of the boy.

Marco blinks up at him – confused for all of about three seconds – before the tears start pooling at the corners of his eyes. He sits there letting the line of salt slide down his cheeks and Jean reaches just the little further to rest his palm – now warm from the spring sun – against Marco’s cheek. He leans into the feeling, closing his eyes and letting himself fall into the feeling of Jean as his pencil falls from his hand, not caring about the way the papers flutter onto the floor and under the desk when he stands up to face Jean.

Marco throws himself into the open arms in front of him and the force of it leaves them tumbling over onto the bed where Jean chuckles under the dead weight of Marco over him – not caring about how he’s definitely crushing his sunglasses somewhere under his back. Marco’s near the edge of sobbing wet circles onto Jean’s thin shirt and he pulls him in closer – down towards the point where there isn’t any room to slide something between their bodies – cradling his head to his neck and letting Marco breathe in his scent as he does the same to him.

They lay like that for so long, letting the other just revel in the other’s presence – needing nothing more than the feeling of arms around each other.

Marco whispers into Jean’s ear after a while, his voice flaking at the edges as he tries to sit up to look down at Jean’s flushed face. “Do you remember?”

Jean smiles up at him, letting his eyes trace the freckles crossing over the bridge of his nose. “Of course I remember.”

“Please don’t leave. Stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere you nerd. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DONE. Hope I gave a decent ending and you liked the story. This was my first ever multichapter fic so high-five for finally finishing it after 5 months. 
> 
> Leave comments and what-not letting me know what you think. I have other projects going on so check those out! 
> 
> [tumblr](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


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